


The Family Business

by River_Winters



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Family Feels, Gen, Muteness, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Twin Sam Winchester, Winchester Sister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 56,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28140972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/River_Winters/pseuds/River_Winters
Summary: I'm Alex Winchester. I've been mute since the night of the nursery fire and no one knows why, but that hasn't stopped me from hunting with my two brothers, Sam and Dean. Our dad disappeared recently and we're setting aside our differences to try and find him. This... could get interesting. (Discontinued)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 5





	1. Bad Mojo

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Song Remains the Same](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24596521) by [River_Winters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/River_Winters/pseuds/River_Winters). 



**October 2004**  
**New Orleans, Louisiana**

* * *

"This is Alex," he says. "She doesn't talk much."

Actually, I don't talk at _all_. But that's my older brother Dean's favorite way of introducing me to strangers, especially when we're working a job. He figured out awhile ago that when he implies I'm disturbed—one of those people who is quiet and crazy and might snap any second… people are inclined to either be a little scared of me, which is better than how they treat me if he tells them what I really am: completely mute. Since forever.

Well, since I was six months old. Apparently I was a normal baby—you know, crying, screaming, babbling, the works—until the night that Mom died. There was a fire in the nursery, she was trapped inside. We—my brothers and me, my dad—barely got out alive. And ever since that night, my vocal chords haven't been able to make a sound. At first doctors said it was some kind of post traumatic stress reaction. They couldn't find anything physically wrong with me, they never did, and here I am, still silent all these years later.

It's okay, I guess. I've gotten used to it, I've figured out my own way in the world. Not like I've had much choice. I think a lot of kids probably say they had a crazy childhood but, no, really: I had a _crazy childhood_. I'm twenty-two now, which seems old to me, but sometimes (okay… most of the time) I still feel like a kid. Dean and Dad definitely treat me like one most of the time. But the way I was raised made me dependent on them, so… I'm sort of stuck. That makes it sound like I want to get away, doesn't it? That's not it either. I love my family, even though we're a wreck and a half. Oh, by the way? I have another brother, Sam. He's my twin and he's older than me by a minute and some change. I don't think about him much anymore, some days I forget about him completely. I don't know how I feel about that.

I haven't seen Sam in years, I think four now. He's away at college, doesn't want anything to do with the family. I _do_ know how I feel about that: sad.

I haven't seen Dad in weeks, but that's nothing new. He does that a lot. Just disappears on hunts and jobs.

Dean's the only one I see every day, and that's always how it's been for my whole life. Even though he constantly annoys the shit out of me, I wouldn't trade him for anyone or anything. He's never let me down, and he's pretty much the only one I can say that about, period. He has his issues and weaknesses, but when it comes down to it, he's my hero. I would never tell him that though. We typically like to keep feelings and shit like that on the down low. No chick flick moments—his words, not mine. Don't let him fool you though. He's a softie underneath the tough guy act. Anyway, he and I are close—we _have_ to be, the work we do.

He and I are on a job right now, actually. We're both in our FBI getup, poking around in this cheesy little hole-in-the-wall voodoo shop. Dean is questioning the shop owner and the shop owner's wife, and I'm looking around, not impressed. It's all a bunch of fake plastic stuff made in China. I look through the shelf of 'psychic powders' and sneak a sniff of the cat's blood powder. Ugh. Yeah… that is _not_ cat's blood—it's talc scented with copper. Gag. What a freaking rip off. I put the little powder jar back. No serious hoodoo here, just tourist trap stuff. Maybe this lead is a bust. Well, _that_ sucks. This was our _last_ lead.

"And what about this guy, you know him?" I hear Dean asking somewhere behind me. He'll be showing the shop owners a photo of the guy we're working for right now, Doug. His family is being haunted. And I mean that in the literal sense.

We're not in the most normal line of work, my brother and I. We're not FBI agents, despite what you might think from our very convincing ID cards and outfits. This one of our covers, one of the numerous illegal stunts we pull working our _real_ job.

It's… well, let me back up and explain a little better. It all goes back to that nursery fire that I mentioned. The fire that killed the mom I can't remember. Her death wasn't caused by faulty wiring, like the police said. It wasn't arson or an accident. It was something else. And I do mean some _thing_. It was a monster, a demon, a supernatural creature of some kind—we're not sure which, just that something paranormal killed her. Ever since I can remember, Dad has been dragging us along with him as he searches for the thing that killed my mom, and he still hasn't found it, but he's not giving up. Say what you will about my dad John Winchester, but hey, he's committed. You can't say he's not… although some people use the word 'obsessed.'

For awhile, me and Sam thought he sold stuff, was a traveling salesman. We didn't know the truth. Dean knew before us what Dad really did, knew that our mom was killed by some kind of thing that goes bump in the night, but he kept it from us, trying to keep us safe from the truth. But as you know, the truth always comes out in the long run.

As far back as I can remember, I know that I was always kind of unsure about who my dad was. I knew a couple things for _sure_ : he was angry, he liked to drink, he was paranoid as hell. Same story now, too.

I always knew we weren't like other families or kids. For one thing, we never lived in a house after Mom died. My entire life has been spent on the road. In the car, staying in skeevy motel rooms, crashed in stranger's homes or friend's of Dad's guest bedrooms. We were never one place for longer than a month or two.

My dad was sort of like a drill sergeant, honestly. He said things like games and playing were a waste of time. From a really young age, he made us learn to shoot, how to fight, how to make weapons out of almost anything, he drilled survival skills into us, made us practice picking locks, getting out of ropes, reloading a shotgun in seconds flat. He taught us these drawings you could do for protection from 'dark forces.' I sometimes thought he was kind of crazy until I saw, for myself, a monster when I was maybe six years old.

We were in a motel room suite, it was the summertime, Dean was ten, Dad was gone. It was real late at night, I was trying to sleep. Beside me, my twin _was_ asleep. I listened to the sound of the TV in the main room, wished Dean would let me watch with him, but he kept telling me to go back to bed each time I wandered out there. So I stayed put and was frustrated with how hot the room was and how wide-awake I felt. After awhile, I heard Dean switch off the TV and leave the room. I jumped up, ran to the window, watched him go across the motel parking lot to the little restaurant across the street. I wasn't sure if I should follow him or not. So I waited and didn't take my eyes off the restaurant. I didn't like it that he wasn't in the room with us anymore, but I remember thinking if I kept my eyes on the restaurant, me and Sam would be safer.

After awhile, I heard it. I turned around, confused. Sam? The light in his room had come on, and something about it all felt bad, just _bad,_ in my stomach, my head, everywhere. I went to the door, opened it even though I was scared. I saw a man with hands like tree branches, like claws. He was like a thing from a halloween movie, but so much worse, and he was bent over Sam, hurting him. And I didn't know what to do. My feet were glued to the floor. And the man saw me and reached out to me and hissed, I opened my mouth to scream even though I wasn't able... he touched me on the head, and I remembered nothing else, it was like I went to sleep. And when I woke up, he was gone, Dad was there and told me I just had a bad dream. I knew that was a lie. And ever since that night, I knew that monsters were real.

I found Dad's journal a couple years later. We weren't supposed to look at it, but I guess even then I was a rebel. I looked, and I would never be able to unsee the things that were there. The drawings, the words in there that I didn't understand frightened me, and I went to Dean, scared, pointing at the journal, hoping he'd understand that I wanted him to explain.

He did explain. That our dad was a superhero, like in the comic books. But he also swore me to secrecy, said Dad didn't tell us about the monsters and demons so that he could keep us safer from it all. When Sam and I were teenagers, Dad finally told us what we had already figured out awhile ago, and he started taking us on hunts, putting all of our training to use. I got left behind a lot or got the stupid tasks (driving the getaway car, running surveillance, going on grocery runs while the 'men took care of the dangerous work'… yeah sure, gimme a frigging break...). Dad said it was to keep me safe—his same old bullshit excuse for everything—but I think it was because he thought I was the weakest link. I couldn't blame him for thinking that, but it made me all the more determined to be as badass as possible. I have a huge problem with people calling me disabled or thinking I'm less of a person for my one small inability to speak. So I kind of work extra hard to prove that I'm just as capable as anyone else.

So, fast forward a few years. Here we are, and this is what we do—me, Dean, Dad—the family business, if you will. No one pays us, there are no benefits—in fact, you could argue that it's the most insane 'career' a person could choose. You really can't ever walk away. You get to a point where you're stuck in this life… and I'm more stuck than a lot of other people are. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong, but… I know that I have no other options, not now, not ever. Dad didn't let me learn sign language, he always said he was going to find a way to fix me. Well… twenty two years later and I'm still stuck on silent and can only communicate by writing, making faces, and using a variety of gestures. I mean I guess if I really wanted to, I could go get a book and learn sign language, it wouldn't be the first thing I taught myself but how many people do you meet who know sign language? Also, I know Dad would never take the time to learn it and I don't want to saddle Dean with yet another thing so… I stay the way I am and have gotten really good at writing fast. It's okay.

Or, I _tell_ myself that it's okay, because if I really do stop and think about it, I get so pissed I could punch a wall. It's _not_ fair but that's life, right? I guess I'm a pretty angry person, deep down, mad that I don't have a voice because I feel like I should have one. That's why I like this life, some days more than others. I get to kick a lot of ass and let go of some very pent up bad feelings by beating the shit out of the bad guys. I mean, it could be worse. I remind myself of that a lot.

And besides being an outlet for my rage, this job saves people. And that's the most important thing at the end of the day. Maybe we haven't found Mom's murderer, but along the way, we've saved a lot of lives. And every time I get fed up and depressed about this weird life I live, I just try and think about that. The monsters we've killed, the families, kids, people we've saved.

So it's not all bad.

Right now, on this particular job we're working, Dean and I are trying to find a Necromancer. Dad's off following some lead in California, left us with the Impala. He wouldn't take us along with him, insisted he needed to do this one alone. I was kind of glad, actually. I honestly don't like to be around him more than I have to be, for a variety of reasons I don't want to go in to or think about.

So, we're working a job just the two of us. A family down here in New Orleans has been haunted by dead spirits, three people have already died. This guy named Doug Morrow called us, got our number from Bobby Singer, a hunter friend of ours who is basically like an uncle to us. Haven't seen him in awhile, need to change that. So anyway, Dean and I burnt rubber to get down here and help out, try and figure out what's happening. At first we thought it was your run-of-the-mill vengeful spirits. But then we began to realize a Necromancer was involved when we found some hex bags and spell work at Doug's house and Doug's parent's house. Necromancers are pretty much witches, the worst kind—they mess around with dead spirits and in some cases they can control them. They give me the heebie jeebies. You can't be too careful around them. I have been triple checking every little crevice and crack of the Impala whenever we get back to it for hex bags, and Dean, as paranoid as I am, is refusing to stay in a motel room—too many places to hide hex bags.

We're obviously dealing with a very powerful, cruel Necromancer from the deaths that have occurred so far. Doug's mom was found with her head crammed into the blender in the family kitchen, three days later his dad was beat to death with golf clubs (while he'd been out on the range _alone_ ), two days after that, Doug's sister was found with a garden hose shoved down her throat still running at full blast—she'd half drowned, half exploded. Pretty sadistic, horrible stuff. It's weird, too, because Doug's family is wealthy and well-loved by the community. They own a small chain of specialty coffee shops. It's been hard finding anyone who doesn't like them or would have motivation to kill them.

I glance back at Dean, who is currently speaking intensely with the shop owner and his wife—our last lead. He has their attention completely; they don't see that I've skirted the edge of the store and am right beside the doorway into the back. A beaded curtain hangs there, and I slip through, trying to be as quiet as possible, hoping the loud blues music that plays over the crappy loudspeaker system will cover up the whispery sound the beads made. Why am I being so paranoid? I really doubt that we're gonna find answers here. The shopkeeper and his wife seem pretty vanilla. I don't think the Necromancer is tied to them in any way, not from what I've seen so far. But, gotta check, just to be sure, gotta see if there's anything that raises a red flag.

I don't see anything incriminating here. It's a storeroom slash break room—just a microwave and a little table and some boxes stacked on some rickety plastic shelves. There's a bathroom door that's marked 'employees only' and then beside that, an unmarked door. Hmm. I try the knob. It's locked, but when has that stopped me? I grab a credit card out of my wallet and jimmy the door open, look behind myself cautiously, then proceed. The door opens to an old wooden stairway that leads down into darkness. Well _that's_ not spooky…. I glance behind me again and then start downwards, shut the door quietly behind myself, steal down the creaky stairs, feeling on edge. I can see that there is a faint light source at the ground level—looks to be candle light. It's cold and dank down here, and it smells like, _what is that,_ wormwood?

Lit candles line the walls, I can see a little better now and… oh wow. Yikes. _Well_ , never mind, this lead was _not_ a bust. I think I found our Necromancer.

The basement is covered floor to ceiling with painted occult symbols, there's a black divination mirror propped on an ornate table, I see a variety of herbs laid onto the table—wormwood (yup, knew I smelled it), Solomon's seal, vervain, masterwort, a few others I don't know. I know that the four I've recognized are used for casting spells and summoning the dead. There is some freshly chalked spell work drawn onto the table… and the most damning evidence there? Photographs of Doug's family—there is a bloody red fingerprint on the heads of his sister Amber, his mother Carolyn, his dad Jeff, the ones who have died already. And there are two more pictures that don't yet have blood on them. One is of Doug, one is of Doug's fiancé, April. So, just like we thought, the Necromancer plans to kill again. I better get Dean.

I turn around and then jump, startled. The shopkeeper's wife, a woman with hawkish features, large eyes, a head too big for her scrawny body stares back at me. She's got skin dark as night and in the dim light, only the whites of her eyes stand out.

"Now you wasn't supposed to be down here, little girl," she drawls in her mellow New Orleans accent, and her tone is eerie, cool. She smiles almost wickedly, showing teeth that are yellowing and seem too long for her mouth. How the hell did she get down the stairs without me hearing her?

I say nothing back to her—hello, _mute_ —but my hand is already hovering at my back, ready to grab the hunting knife I always have holstered in my belt loop, I'm watching her carefully, ready to defend myself at a second's notice. I'm not sure if the Necromancer is her or her husband… I remember the bloody thumbprints on the photos and look down at her hands. She has a bandaid on one of her thumbs. Mmm _hmm_. Okay, so no big deal, she's a murderer and and a Necromancer and just caught me finding her out on both counts. This is shaping up great for me.

"Shouldn't be poking around down here, _cher_ ," she says in her low, smooth voice. "Might be the last thing you do..."

I take that as a threat and am just about to let her know I don't take kindly to threats… when I hear the door at the top of the stairs open loudly, and my brother's heavy, clomping footsteps. He comes down the stairs, arms held up—behind him, the shopkeeper, holding a pistol aimed at the back of his head. Oh _great_. Just great.

"Okay, so what I don't get," Dean is saying casually, as if he's used to having a gun pointed at him (well, actually, he is), "is _why_ you and the missus are killing off the Morrow family with your creepy hoodoo stuff," Dean says, almost seeming amused. "I mean, what'd they do to you?"

The shopkeeper motions for Dean to come stand beside me and he does, gives me a sidelong look, smiles cheekily. "Hi," he greets me, like it's been awhile and like he thinks he's cute. _Shut up,_ I want to tell him. I feel kind of grumpy right now at this turn of events.

"That rich white family gonna shut us down," the wife answers. She draws herself up to her full height, looking at Dean angrily. "They tryin' to run us out of business, buy this shop and tear it down to build more of their _soulless_ coffee shops."

Dean looks confused, like _no way, that can't be it._ His expression twists up. "You telling me all this crap is over _real estate_?"

Her contemptuous expression sours even further. "No, Agent Ford, not real estate. Our place in this world."

" _This_ dump?" Dean questions and I kick him in the shin— _you're gonna get us killed, you idiot!_

The wife is insulted, there's a cold, building fury in her voice. "This ' _dump_ ' has been in the family since the city was built in the seventeen hundreds. We wasn't gonna listen to that man's offers any more or his insults about our heritage. They threaten to get the code inspector out here, they threaten to get us audited if we won't give in to their demands." She is quiet and narrows her eyes. "No."

Dean and I exchange a look. Well, Doug didn't tell us _those_ details, which seem sort of sketchy but still… this woman seems nine kinds of crazy to me. I mean I understand not wanting to sell out the family business or whatever, but really, did she have to resort to violently killing the family one by one?

"So lemme get this straight," Dean says, chuckling a little, acting casual. "You don't like the offer... so you kill the entire family with ghosts."

There is a cool, superior smile. "Yes. Not just them, but you and Agent Fisher, too," the lady says, glancing at me. "That's what you get for poking your nose where it don't belong," she says. Dean's expression is pretty murderous at this point, but he doesn't move—the husband is still holding us at gunpoint. The wife goes over to a hutch against the wall opposite of us, pulls out a polaroid camera from a drawer. Oh geez, I see where she's going with this, but it's kind of weird. Why not just shoot us? Would be easier. She comes up and takes my picture. The flash blinds me, she then takes one of Dean.

"Hey, that wasn't my good side," he quips. She ignores him, takes the two gray, developing polaroid pictures out and puts them down onto the table with the photos of the other victims, I look at Dean sidelong like _any day now_. Just give me the signal. I'm very aware that the shopkeeper is still standing there, holding the gun on us and I know he is too, but come on… it's now or never, right?

I see a flicker in Dean's front. He's nervous, a little unsure. But he covers it up, carries on like he's indifferent, detached, a little amused by everything. "Okay, you know what? I think we're done here," he says, and waits for the wife to reply.

"Oh no, we just getting started," the wife says, and she's cutting open another finger slowly, picking up one of our pictures, she begins to chant in a low voice.

And the second we've been waiting for—the shopkeeper glances, just briefly, away from us and at his wife—and Dean barrels forward, tackling the guy to the floor. I hear them wrestling around, hear the gun clattering to the floor—even as I grab the wife by the back of her dress and fling her away from the table. The photographs flutter to the floor, she whirls around, surprisingly fast and I see that her eyes have gone completely white. She pushes me hard, harder than I think she should be able to, naturally—I fly back and hit the wall—it hurts bad, the impact is jarring and makes pain explode all throughout my back. I fall forward but roll sideways, finding my footing again, fighting through the pain because it's do or die.

This next part happens in the span of just a couple small seconds, but it feels a lot slower than that. I see that the shopkeeper has regained control, he's straddling Dean on the floor and then pistol-whips him across the face with brutal force. My brother yelps and falls back, stunned, and the shop keeper is pulling the pistol's hammer back, aiming the gun at Dean's face—and I don't even know when I whipped out my knife, I don't have time to think, I just throw it hard and fast like I've practiced a thousand times, my only thought is to save Dean. The knife plunges into the husband's back between his shoulder blades and Dean's would-be murderer cries out in pain and shock, falls over and off of my brother.

The wife—I forgot about her for two seconds, _shit_ —shrieks in rage and she's suddenly in my face, her hands like an iron vice around my neck, her white eyes staring at me, seething. She's holding me against the wall with surprising strength, I can _feel_ the dark power rising off of her like a mirage of heat off the ground on a summer day. She's hissing at me and throttling me, it hurts, I can't breathe, I kick my feet uselessly and can't break her hold on me—

And then there's a gunshot. She's shocked, her eyes have gone wide, her hands slack. And she lets go of me, falls sideways. I'm surprised, not sure what happened. To my left, Dean is standing, holding his gun, a grim look on his face. He looks at me, expression unreadable. I slowly, weakly give him the thumbs up. _Thanks._ I put my other hand onto my neck, wincing, still able to feel the crushing force of the Necromancer's fingers there. _Ouch. Son of a_ bitch _that hurt._

"You okay?" he asks gruffly, coming to me and trying to get a good look at my neck. I shrug, like, I guess?

He's bleeding from his cheek where he was struck with the pistol and I look at the wound with wincing sympathy, gesture to it.

"Ah, I've had worse," he replies, brushing aside my unspoken question. Satisfied that we're both okay, we both look at the dead bodies on the ground. Well, I guess case closed. Still, I don't feel great. The dead body of the shopkeeper is face down and I have to yank my knife out of his back, look at his blood on my knife. I don't like killing people. Killing monsters and ghosts is okay with me, but this? This gets into the moral gray area. Dean's voice interrupts my thoughts.

"Shall we?" my brother asks, gesturing toward the stairway. I nod and grab up all of the photographs before we go, just in case. And maybe I'm weird, but I take the polaroid camera, too. Dean gives me a weird look. _What? I like cameras._

He stops at the foot of the stairs, his hand on the railing and he looks back at the people we killed. "You know, at least with monsters and stuff you feel okay killing them. With people... feels a lot messier."

He looks at me briefly. I look back again, not really wanting to, but not able to stop myself. The shopkeeper's wife stares up lifelessly at the ceiling. I'm sorry she chose to handle things the way she did. I'm sorry we had to kill her and her husband.

But sometimes, you just don't have a choice. It's kill or be killed.

* * *

**The Next Day  
** **San Antonio, Texas**

I brush my teeth fast, glance up into the reflection in the fast food restaurant bathroom mirror. I'm often times struck by how I don't look a damn thing like my mom and how much that sucks because from the pictures I've seen, she was really beautiful, sort of looked like a barbie doll. She was blonde with pretty little features, really girly. Me? I'm the spitting image of Dad, if he were a chick. I have the same dark hair, wide-set eyes, prominent jaw, flat eyebrows. I look at the old photos of mom and am not sure why my twin got the pretty features and I ended up looking like the dude.

Another lady uses the sink beside me to wash her hands and gives me a weird look as I spit out the toothpaste and rinse. I'm used to the funny looks by now and don't really care. People look at you weird when they catch you brushing your teeth in public bathrooms, but you don't even want to know the comments and looks you get when people catch you washing your hair or shaving your legs in public restrooms. It's just one of those times you have to suck up your pride and just do what you've gotta do. I toss my toothbrush back into my duffel bag which I had plopped onto the counter and zip it shut, go back out into the dining room where we were eating lunch. The table has a bunch of our junk all over it—files, printouts, notepad, pens. We kind of set up office wherever we go.

Dean's sitting at a table, on his phone, listening intently, a weird look on his face. His half-eaten hamburger sits in front of him, forgotten.

Immediately, I can tell something's up. I sit down across from him, watching him closely, trying to figure out what's up. He's frowning deeply and lets out a troubled breath, holds the phone out to me, indicating I listen.

"Push one to listen to the voicemail again," he tells me, and I push one, hold the phone to my ear, then my stomach flops weirdly when I hear Dad's voice—not who I was expecting to hear. The voicemail is fuzzy and distorted, breaks up a bunch, I can barely make it out. There are weird cracks and hisses, buzzes.

" _Dean… something big is starting to happen… I need to try... figure out... going on. It may... you two… very careful. We're all in danger."_

I'm confused and a little thrown off by the urgent tone in Dad's voice and I look at Dean questioningly. "Phone didn't even ring," Dean says, sounding as disturbed as I'm beginning to feel. "Just suddenly said new voicemail. Did you hear all that EVP on there?"

I'm grabbing my very beat up laptop out of the laptop case on the table, opening it up and impatiently clicking the space bar as it wakes up. Of course I heard the EVP, and that's half of the reason I feel suddenly a little afraid. EVP is short for electronic voice phenomenon. They're sounds found on electronic recordings which resemble speech, but are not the result of intentional recording or rendering—in other words, it's the paranormal world, ghosts and spirits, caught in recordings. In mainstream culture, people think EVP is a bunch of conspiracy theory screwhead crap, but in our world, we know better than that. _What have you gotten yourself in to, Dad?_

For the next few minutes, Dean and I work on getting the voicemail over onto the laptop, arguing. Well, Dean coming over to sit beside me, telling me "no, that's not how—give it to me, lemme— _hey_!" as I smack his hand away. He gets impatient with me sometimes, but hey, feeling's mutual.

I finally get the recording over onto my laptop, run it through gold wave, slow it down, remove the hiss, hit the laptop a couple times when it freezes up—piece of _junk_ —I hate computers—and press play to hear the final product.

" _I can never go home..._ " says a sad, soft female voice. Dean and I both look at each other. I can see the wheels in my brother's mind turning, he's frowning deeply, staring at the laptop screen unseeingly.

"Never go home," he repeats, thinking hard, then picks up his phone, calls Dad's number, gets up and paces back and forth beside the table. He calls three times.

"Dammit, he won't _answer_ ," Dean mutters angrily. Same as the past three weeks. I'm not sure why Dad won't answer, I just know it's upsetting my brother a lot.

"Okay, you know what? Get that slowed down recording onto the tape recorder for me," Dean says, and grabs his jacket, starts shoving all of the paper clippings into the laptop bag. "But you'll have to do it in the car."

 _What's the huge hurry? Are we gonna go try and find Dad? Huh, okay…_ but then Dean surprises me with what he says as he shrugs his jacket on. "We're gonna go get Sam."

I look at Dean in shock, unable to hide it… and then grab a pen that's still on the table, the notepad it was on top of. I write my response, underline it twice, then show it to him, my expression demanding.

**Why?**

"Because you heard Dad… we're _all_ in danger. Besides, Sam can help us out." Dean lowers his voice, leans a little closer. "I have a bad feeling about this, Al. Don't you? Come on, Dad's being weird as hell then he leaves us this voicemail about something big happening?" Dean gives me a look, like _don't you feel it too_? Yeah I do, but… I don't like this idea at all, it rubs me the wrong way.

Dean snaps the laptop shut sort of rudely, making me look at him. "Just go with me on this one," he says, and I already know there's no use arguing. But I can let him know I'm not happy about it.

I give him the most _are you frigging kidding me_ look I can muster. I mean, _what the hell is Sam gonna do that we can't? He hasn't hunted in like four years, isn't he safer out of the loop than in it?_

In response to the face I'm making, Dean gets exasperated. " _What_? He hasn't dialed my number in years either, you don't think I'm mad too?" He's getting impatient. "Come on, let's go."

* * *

I'm hunkered down in the front seat beside Dean as the Impala coasts down the freeway. It's around sunset, we're somewhere just shy of the California border, I think. I'm trying to get used to the idea of seeing Sam again. I have a lot of mixed feelings about my twin. Last time I saw him was when he left for Stanford and it was one of the worst nights I can remember. He and Dad were practically screaming at each other before it was all over.

I can't remember most of the shouting match except for the end, which has always stuck in my mind, whether I want it to or not.

"If you leave, if you walk out that door, you better _stay_ gone!" Dad had thundered.

"You know what, I _will_!" Sam had fired back, enraged. "I don't belong in this shitty excuse for a family and I don't care if I ever see any of you ever again!" He'd stormed away, and that was the last time I saw him.

He's emailed me a couple times over the past few years here and there, just to check in. But I think he feels like I do. Like it hurts too much to communicate much with each other because of the memories it brings back. So, we just kind of ignore the issue. I mean for me, the last thing I need in my life is more pain, right? But I do feel guilty. I miss how Sam and I used to be, back when we were a lot younger. I'm not sure how to act when I see him again, and my stomach is in knots.

He just… we used to be close as kids, as most twins are I guess. But I don't know what happened—as we grew up, hit the middle school and high school years, we just clashed, grew apart. He started trying to separate himself from the family, started becoming restless and unhappy. He and I have our similarities—stubbornness, temper, we take things to heart—but we have a lot of differences and always have.

He was always Mr. Good Grades, I dropped out when I was sixteen. Forged Dad's signature on the paperwork, made my whole family good and mad when they found out. I wanted to shake them… because what good was algebra going to do me when hunting a Wendigo? Why would knowing about world history be useful for me, in the kind of life I live? Also, you don't even wanna _know_ how mean kids are to the mute tomboy looking girl. I'd had it with the entire everything that school was and I decided to quit.

"Hello, earth to Al?" Dean says and I look at him, frowning, preoccupied, _huh_? "I asked if you wanted burgers or tacos for dinner."

I shrug, who cares. And Dean grins. "Burgers it is!"

Again? It's _always_ burgers. It's quiet for another minute and Dean clears his throat. "Listen, I know seeing Sam will probably be kinda, _heh_ , weird for us all, but he can help us on this, okay? Trust me. And hey, maybe this is the opportunity we've been waiting for."

I give him a weird look. ' _We_?' I mouth skeptically and he huffs impatiently.

"Fine, me. I just, you know. Wanna see this family back together again, how we used to be."

This is one of those moments where I _so_ wish I could just open my mouth and tell him everything I am thinking and feeling. What, you wanna see the family how it used to be when you and Sam fought constantly, clashed and argued about everything, Sam whined day in and day out, you got jealous of how Dad treated him differently? I think Dean is remembering things in better light than how they actually were. I really doubt Sam will go for this, but Dean seems optimistic.

"It could be great, you know? The three amigos, back together again," Dean says, and I look at him sidelong, pick my notepad up from off the floor, scrawl something. I show it to Dean and make a face at him—I'm grudging and resigned, but trying to find some humor in the situation, too.

**Just don't expect me to like it, jerk.**

He just grins crookedly and laughs, _knowing_ he's won and smug about it. He turns up the music—a song we've both heard a million billion times—and he starts to drum along to the beat of the song on the steering wheel.

" _Won't ya_ _gimme three steps, gimme three steps mister_!" He bellows out, 'singing' along pretty badly to Skynyrd. I roll my eyes, trying to press a smile away by smashing my lips in together. What a _loser._ I'd tell him to audition for American Idol sarcastically and laugh at him, but I don't feel like writing it out, and anyway, I think he gets the idea that I'm judging him and that he's pretty terrible from the look I'm giving him.

"Hey, don't look at me in that tone of voice!" he quips, pretending to be mad for two seconds. His face relaxes into a grin as he looks back at the road, shamelessly bobs his head up and down to the music, pursing his lips. He mortifies me and delights me at the same time and I shake my head, look down, a hand on my forehead. _Oh my god you are the uncoolest dude in the world._ I'd be laughing out loud at this point if I were able.

And this is how I've survived the life I lived: moments of stupidity and silliness peppered into the more horrible stuff we do: kill, hurt, bleed.

The Impala streaks down the road at illegal speeds, taking us toward Stanford, where the brother we haven't seen in years is about to get a pretty rude awakening. I don't have the heart to tell Dean that I doubt Sam will even _consider_ coming with us. He's a good guy, really, but I know how he feels about Dad. I know how he feels about hunting. I know how he feels about _me_. And all of it adds up to very slim chances that he'll hear Dean out on this or help us in any way.

But, if he does agree to come along… there's only one thing for me to think.

This... could get interesting.


	2. The Woman in White

**Stanford, California**   
**October 31st, 2004**

I'm leaned up against the car, out here alone. Dean is a weirdo and he parked _behind_ Sam's apartment building—and the reason he gave me when I looked at him weirdly and mouthed 'why?'

"Cuz all these Halloween freaks out here are gonna be drunk off their asses and I don't feel like having some idiot mess with my car!"

Classic Dean. This car is his baby to the point of ridiculousness. I tap my foot against the pavement impatiently, nervously. I was too chicken to go in and Dean's been in there for at least ten minutes now. It's the dead of night, around two am and the buzzing sound of the old lights attached to the butt of Sam's apartment building is starting to really piss me off. Should I have gone in? I'm being a little shit about this, I'm pretty sure. Loud sigh. Well I'm not going in _now_ , that would make me look even stupider.

We drove twenty-four hours straight from San Antonio to Stanford to arrive here and see if Sam will come give us a hand finding Dad... and to me, that is the definition of a long shot. I guess maybe Dean decided an in-person appeal would work better than a phone call, cuz he wouldn't call Sam to even give him a heads up that we were coming. He told me not to give Sam a heads up either. I humored him. Mostly because I don't even have Sam's current number anymore. I texted him on our twenty-first birthday when I was mad—he didn't contact me or Dean to say hi and I was indignant and wounded and kind of drunk… so in all of my great maturity I texted him _happy birthday you fucking JERK_ and he'd replied _who is this_? He'd removed or lost my number, apparently… and I deleted his number angrily, like it was some great revenge I was getting on him. Real grown up of me, I know.

I start to pace a little, looking around the dark alleyway I'm in with a frown. I haven't felt this upset in at least six months, which is funny, given the hunts we've gone on recently. I'm more freaked out about the prospect of seeing my long-lost twin brother than I was about facing a necromancer. _Nice._ I just don't have a clue how this will go or if Sam will even come out at all. If I'll see him at all, period. He might shoot Dean down and tell him to get lost _._ Some idiots dressed as ghosts and sexy pirates walk by at the end of the alley. _Geez._ Halloween is so stupid. I don't like it, honestly.I stop pacing abruptly when I hear a door slamming nearby. I look over at the staircase I saw Dean jog down a few minutes ago—I can hear Sam, I recognize his voice immediately, and my stomach flips weirdly. Is he actually coming _with_ us?

I see the top of Dean's head now bobbing up toward me as he climbs the stairs. Sam, towering over Dean, is behind him, and it's too dark to really see very well, but I can hear better now at least. "I mean the weapon training, and melting the silver into _bullets_?" Sam is asking. He doesn't sound too happy. Actually, he sounds indignant. "Man, Dean, we were raised like friggin'—" he stops talking the second they get to the top of the stairs and he sees me—they're under a light now and I can see him, too. Surprise filters over his face and he attempts to finish his sentence. "...warriors."

I stand there silently (well, what else is new, but I mean, like, frozen and shocked, just like him). Wow, he looks different. Taller somehow, or maybe I forgot how freakishly tall he was in the first place. He's like a beanpole, thinner than he was before, his hair is longer and floppier than it used to be. He's looking at me weird, hesitant, nervous. Like he wasn't expecting to see me, like he didn't know I'd be here. He attempts a smile and it falls flat. "H-hey, Alex."

I put a hand up, palm facing him, wave hi once, sharply, attempt a smile—it ends up being one of those stretched, flat-mouth expressions that looks more like a grimace than anything else. "You uh, you look good," he says automatically, trying to say something nice, and I make a face because it's so damn obvious he doesn't genuinely think what he said. _Really_? Even I know I look like shit. Cuz I haven't had a shower in three days and I never sleep and I feel like puking at the current moment. He never approved of this life for me and I remember that very well.

Dean doesn't seem to notice the awkward exchange, or maybe he doesn't care… he just looks at me and crosses his arms. " _Sam_ here doesn't want to help us out, you believe that Al?" He asks and I look back at him sidelong, trying not to give him an _I told you so_ look.

Sam fumbles for an excuse because he doesn't like Dean's guilt-trip implication that he's a bad son and brother... and he's abruptly talking really empathetically, almost whiningly, like I'm suddenly remembering he always did. "Dean it's not that I don't wanna help, I just—"

"You just _what_ , you wanna live some normal, apple pie life, knowing what you know about what's out there?" Dean demands, and there's an edge of hooded anger to his voice.

Sam looks at Dean cooly. "No. Not normal. _Safe._ "

"Is that why you ran away?" Dean asks, going right in for an argument, again trying to needle Sam with guilt Dean obviously thinks he should feel. "Cuz you were scared of the life?"

Sam makes a face, almost amused or offended. I'm not totally sure which and maybe he's not either. "I was just going to _college,_ " he says, but we all know it's not that simple. "It was _Dad_ who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone," Sam continues, and there's a bitterness to the way he says it, even though he's trying to sound nonchalant. "And that's what I'm doing."

 _Did Dad also tell you to not contact your brother and sister ever and ignore us, too?_ I think bitterly, then realize I don't actually have any right to think that. It's a two way street and I've ignored him these past few years like it's my job. Maybe he's just as resentful of us as I am of him.

"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now," Dean insists, putting aside the argument, his tone dark and worried. "If he's not dead already. I can feel it." Sam is pensive, looks down, conflicted. "Come on, Sam. Please," Dean says. "I can't do this alone."

My head whips up to look at Dean accusingly—I'm shocked he'd say that, and he looks at me, guilty. "You're _not_ alone," Sam says, voicing exactly what I was thinking and looking at Dean pointedly.

"I mean—you know what I mean," Dean says to him, glancing at me briefly, trying to save face and obviously realizing that what he said was really hurtful and thoughtless. "I— _we_ —don't wanna do this without you."

Sam looks over at me and I think he can tell I wasn't exactly gung ho about the idea of him coming along... but he seems almost sympathetic towards me and that only makes me madder. I don't need anyone to feel sorry for me. And maybe Sam's just being nice, I'm not sure… but he sighs, grudging, and at least decides to hear Dean out. "What was he hunting?"

Dean grins, chuckles, glances at me like he thinks _I've got him now!_ I don't smile back, just give him a dirty look. My feelings are hurt by his comment about 'doing this alone.' But even as Dean is looking away sort of chastised and walking around to the back of the car, Sam is looking at me with a quizzical little expression. "You get taller?" he asks me—trying to break the ice a little I guess. I shrug a little. I've been five-foot-eight since I was like sixteen and I haven't grown any since then. I don't want to bond with him, I don't want to be happy to be around him… I don't want to _lose_ him again, watch him walk away again. _Fuck_. I wanna shoot myself in the foot because I promised myself I could be cool about this and not get upset either way, whatever he decided to do.

Dean is opening the trunk of the car and I go back there too with Sam trailing behind. I suddenly remember that my duffel bag is back there and my sketchbook. They'll need to be moved so that Dean can lift up the spare tire compartment where all the other stuff is. Not wanting to hear it from Dean, I swoop in and grab my stuff up so fast that a bunch of loose pages flutter out of my sketchbook. Sam crouches to pick up a few that fell to the ground and I'm mortified as I grab up a few near me, trying to beat him to the punch, but he's gotten two before I can get to them.

"Still drawing these?" Sam asks, straightening up. It's from the series of really silly cartoons I used to draw of us—me, Dean, and Sam—through the middle school years. I was Mouse, they were Lion (Dean) and Bear (Sam). Lion and Bear were really big, I always drew them with capes and big claws. Mouse… me… well, she was little and furry but I always gave myself a machine gun or a machete. I snatch the drawings away from my twin, indignant. "Hey, they're _good_!" he protests and cracks a dimply smile at me, chuckling. And I just glare at him, hold my sketchbook close to me, once again feeling pulled into fond memories of our childhood when he used to grin at me like that all the time… and then of course the inevitable devastation of when he left us.

"Nah she doesn't draw those anymore, those are from a few years ago," Dean answers offhandedly for me as he opens the little arsenal we have built into the spare-tire compartment—he props it open with a shotgun— _my_ shotgun. He starts rooting around in all the junk that we aren't so good at keeping organized—Dad would kill us for the mess, too. He likes order and neatness. "All right, let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?" Dean mutters, tossing a folder aside.

I open one of the back doors of the Impala and toss my duffel bag and sketchbook there, shut the door behind it. Sam, looking slightly uncertain of himself, watches Dean dig around in the trunk. "So when Dad left, why didn't you guys go with him?"

Dean jerks his head toward me as I come to stand near him, opposite Sam on the other side of the open trunk. "Me and Mouse over here were working our own gig. This, uh, voodoo thing, down in New Orleans."

"Dad let you go on a hunting trip just the two of you?" Sam asks, mildly incredulous.

Dean stops and gives Sam a look. "I'm _twenty-six_ , dude. I can look out for myself. And her too."

Sam just raises his eyebrows briefly, glances at me. Sam would be surprised about how much Dad has changed these past few years, I think. Dean gets the folder of research we complied and pulls out a few pages. "All right, here we go. So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, _this_ guy..." he hands a paper over to Sam. "They found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA."

"So maybe he was kidnapped," Sam suggests and I give him a look, like _really Sam? You think Dad would be into this job if it wasn't nine kinds of weird?_

Dean shakes his head, doubtful. "Here's another one in April..." he tosses down another newspaper clipping for each date he mentions, stacking them onto the opposite side of the folder they're in. "Another one in December 'oh-four, 'oh-three, 'ninety-eight, 'ninety-two, ten of them over the past twenty years." He takes back the article he'd handed Sam. "All men, all the same five-mile stretch of road."

Sam looks dubious, unconvinced and I cross my arms. God, this is a waste of time. I almost feel, like, emotional at this point and it's making me angry. I guess I'm steeling myself for the inevitable walkaway but I'm also realizing that it's going to hurt a lot more than I thought. In my mind, Sam had become a memory and I had been resigned to the fact that he was gone. It was easier not to think about him or communicate with him and I wish we had left well enough alone.

Dean's not giving up though. "It started happening more and more," he's saying as I brood, "so Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. We hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough but then I get this voicemail yesterday." He holds up the tape recorder and presses play and Sam listens with an increasingly focused, distressed look on his face.

" _Dean… something big is starting to happen… I need to try... figure out... going on. It may... you two… very careful. We're all in danger."_

The recording stops and Sam looks at Dean quietly. "You know there's EVP on that?"

Dean cracks a grin. "Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it? All right, so we slowed the message down, ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what we got..." he presses play again and that soft, haunted female voice says _"I can never go home…"_

"Never go home," Sam repeats, thoughtful and a little troubled. He's thinking hard about coming along. I can tell. And there's a flutter of surprised hopefulness in my stomach. I realize that I super want him to come along and I also super _don't_. Either option is making me anxious as hell and I'm gnawing the inside of my cheek repeatedly.

Dean closes the arsenal and stands straight, shuts the trunk, then turns his back to it, leaning there, sitting halfway. He looks at Sam long and hard. "You know, in almost two years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing," he says, shrugs mildly. I can hear how pained he is. "Given you your space, let you do your thing…" he looks down, wets his lips. "But we need you on this one." He pauses and looks at our brother meaningfully, pleadingly, tries to cover it up with a crooked grin that doesn't reach his eyes. "We wouldn't be here if I wasn't desperate."

I look at Dean out of the corner of my eyes. I can hear how sad he is and how deep that sadness reaches. He always tries to act cool about everything—like he's not affected by the blows life has dealt him—but right now I can really hear how how much he misses Sam, how much he just wants the family back together. How scared he is about Dad. I don't like it when Dean is scared or not confident about stuff. I think Sam can hear it too. He looks away and sighs, reluctant and hesitating, thinking about it. I watch how Dean looks at him, trying not to give away how much he hopes Sam will say yes.

Sam looks back, first at me, then at Dean. He looks like he already regrets what he's about to say. "All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him." Cue my eyebrows raising up as dawning, pleased surprise softens Dean's features. "But I have to get back first thing Monday," Sam adds on quickly, making sure we know he's in, but only for a couple days.

"What's first thing Monday?" Dean asks, and Sam hesitates, like he doesn't want to tell us.

"I have this… I have an interview."

"What, a job interview?" Dean scoffs slightly, shrugs like it's no big deal. "Skip it."

"It's a law school interview," Sam clarifies meaningfully, a little annoyed with Dean's flippancy, "and it's my _whole future_ on a plate."

" _Law school_?" Dean smirks. I'm looking at Sam in surprise, sort of impressed. That's pretty ambitious. I suddenly wonder how he's paying for school and if he has a job and if he's got friends and how he's been doing— _really_ doing—these past few years.

"Yeah, law school," Sam retorts. "So we got a deal or not?"

Dean lets out a breath, shrugs nonchalantly. "Yeah. Deal. Go get whatever stuff you'll need."

Sam rolls his eyes at Dean's offhand bossy command then looks at me. "Hey, Alex, why don't you come up with me? Jess will wanna meet you." I look at him, puzzled... _who's Jess_? "My girlfriend," he explains at my confused expression. _Ah._

Dean makes to come with us but Sam gives him a look. " _You_ stay here." Dean raises his hands in mock surrender and I wonder what Dean did—probably flirted with this Jess chick, if I know my oldest brother (which, trust me, I do).

"Fair enough." Dean chuckles, and gives Sam a smug grin, cracks a stupid joke. "Just remember to pack your underwear, Samantha."

Sam rolls his eyes again, looks at me. "Come on, Alex." He leads the way. I follow Sam inside, down the stairs and into the basement of the building, then back up more stairs—Sam shuffles up the steps, turns back slightly to me, I guess trying to make conversation as best as he can. "So, uh, everything okay with you these days?" He asks as we get to the top of the stairs and holds a door open for me.

I shrug, looking at surrounding area closely as we move into a dim hallway lined with numbered apartment doors. There's an open door and a guy talking to a girl, which is where we seem to be headed. The girl is blonde and beautiful, wearing a house robe of some kind—actually, I think she just put it on, cuz she's tying the sash, smiling sort of impatiently, uncomfortably, at the guy leaned against the doorframe casually. He turns, sees Sam and me, grins widely. "Heya _Sam_!" he greets with a great amount of enthusiasm. I take one look at him and make a snap judgement: total douchebag—it's written all over his preppy outfit and smug smile and general aura he gives off. He's blond and handsome I guess but something about him is immediately unlikable to me.

"Hey, Brady," Sam responds as we reach them. He sounds a little tired or edgy, but is trying to disguise it and be pleasant.

Brady smiles at Sam, a really wide, cocksure kind of grin, and I hang back a little behind Sam, suspicious. "Just came over, thought I heard some noises," Brady explains. "Wanted to make sure everything was okay with Jess and Sam!" He exclaims and laughs, and I wonder if he's on something. He's zany and just sort of _off_ , seems twitchy and drugged out or something. He looks at me now and he doesn't bother to hide the creepy way he looks me up and down. "So who's _she_?"

" _Not_ interested," Sam responds immediately, good-natured but very firm, almost patronizing. He claps Brady on the shoulder gently and looks at him, wincing sympathetically. "I think you've had a few too many tonight, my friend. Need help back to your apartment?"

Brady makes a face. "Pssh. I'm one door down, if I were _that_ plastered we'd be in trouble!" He laughs loudly and Jess is looking at Sam like _please get rid of this idiot_. She's really pretty—long wavy blonde hair, strong jaw, striking eyes. My first impression of her is that she seems sweet and girly. Exactly Sam's type so I'm not that surprised.

Sam chuckles, a strained sound. "Good _night_ , Brady."

"Yeah, night Sam." Brady grins leeringly at me and then at Jess. "Seeya later, girls."

He stumbles away down the hall and Sam looks after him, sighs gustily. I have to wonder if maybe that guy is one of Sam's pet projects. He's always taken broken people under his wing. I used to be one of them. "Come on in," Sam says to me, and indicates I go ahead of him. Jess smiles at me, holds the door open wider.

I walk in slowly, down a tiny little entry hallway and into the main room, curious as hell but trying to be discreet as I check out the dimly lit apartment, this place where Sam lives and apparently shares with a serious girlfriend. "If he comes and knocks on our door _one more time_ in the middle of the night, I'm gonna smash him in the head with a frying pan," Jess says to Sam behind me somewhere, jokingly.

"He's just going through a rough patch," Sam says, and I hear the door close, hear them coming in behind me as I stand in the main room, looking around. It's a nice little apartment—it has a really homey feeling to it and I feel a pang of sadness because I've never lived in a place like this, a real home. No, that's not sadness I'm feeling, it's mild jealously.

"A _rough patch_? For a whole year, Sam?" Jess laughs softly, and she sounds endeared to Sam, proud of him but also sort of exasperated. "You're a much better friend than he's been to you."

I see pictures of Sam and Jess dotting the surfaces of the tables in the living room, and in the photos they're grinning widely, arms around each other. In one of them she's sitting on his shoulders and making a mock-scared face with her arms thrown out wide, like he's about to drop her. They look so happy and _normal_ and I bet he's never told her about his real life, what he did before he came here to Stanford. I mean, how could she still look so young and carefree if she knew? I don't know how Sam can hide from the dark things we've seen and done, how he looks so normal and well-adjusted in these pictures.

"Yeah, well, _someone's_ gotta be there for him," Sam says, and I can hear the smile on his voice. I turn around now and see them coming into the living room.

"You must be Alex," Jess says, smiling warmly at me. "I recognize you from the picture." She gestures at one of the framed pictures I didn't notice, sitting on the little table beside the couch. Wow, I'd forgotten about this one and I'm also really surprised that there's a picture of us displayed here, period… the picture is when Sam and I were fourteen or fifteen I guess. Dean is standing in the middle, with one of us on either side of him. He has his arms draped over us and a cocky little smirk on his face—Sam is smiling widely like a normal person does in pictures—I'm smiling too but close-mouthed, and it looks like I'm trying to suppress it. We'd just played paintball in Bobby's salvage yard and our coveralls are splattered in paint of every color. We almost look like a normal family. That was one of the few days that I remember actually feeling like a normal person.

"Your brother's told me a lot about you," Jess says, friendly and welcoming and I look back at her, glance at Sam dubiously—I doubt that he has, he's never been very into sharing details about his family… but that's just the thing people say when they meet you. "It's really nice to meet you," she says and I smile tightly, glance at Sam again. I'm markedly uncomfortable right now. I'm not used to Dean not being at my side constantly, for one, and I don't know Jess and I haven't been around Sam in what feels like forever and I'm not exactly the best in social situations like this.

"Are you hungry? Thirsty?" Jess asks. "Can I get you anything?" she asks. I shake my head no, no. She seems really nice but also a little on edge. She glances at Sam, clearly wondering what's going on and anxious to find out.

"So uh, I'm gonna head out for a day or two," Sam says to her and concern and uncertainty flash across Jess's face—her gaze flickers over to me. "Help my brother and sister track down my Dad," Sam says. "It's no big deal. I just gotta pack my bag, okay?"

Jess is sort of stunned. "O-okay," she says, and Sam smiles at her briefly, goes into a room that's off of the living room. The bedroom I guess. Jess watches him go and she looks at me again. I give her another awkward little smile and I can see how unsure she is about what to do with me. That's the thing about being mute… it makes people uncomfortable by default.

"You sure I can't get you anything?" she asks. She's so, so pretty and I feel extremely ugly and gross in comparison with my stringy brown hair and dirty wrinkled clothes. I shake my head no again and force a smile. I know this has to be weird for her… I have no idea how long she and Sam have been dating but from the looks of it—living together, photos of them together everywhere, they're pretty serious. So she knows that Sam's not close to us. And me and Dean showing up in the middle of the night _is_ sort of nuts, all kinds of suspicious. She clears her throat.

"Sorry, uh, if you'll just excuse me a sec," she says, and follows Sam. I keep looking around, can hear their voices, sort of muffled. My curiosity wins out. I steal a little closer to the room, keeping out of their eyesight, but getting close enough to hear.

"It's just… you won't ever even _talk_ about your family," I hear her saying. "And now you're taking off in the middle of the night to spend a weekend with them?" She sounds worried. "And Monday's coming up, which is kind of a huge deal."

"Hey," Sam tells her soothingly, and I can hear him moving, walking toward the door of the room—I quickly move back toward the center of the room, think I can hear him telling her everything's gonna be okay and he'll be back in time. He comes back into the living room, a bag slung over his shoulder, and Jess calls after him "At least tell me where you're going!" She appears in the doorway, looking at him pleadingly, giving him a pouty, puppydog face.

"Would if I could!" Sam says, shrugging and giving her a cute, helpless little smile and then going back over to her. They kiss and I feel insanely awkward, try to look the other way, not stare or leer. "Love you," Sam tells her softly and she smiles up at him, her eyes crinkling up.

"Love you too." She is a little shy now, looking over at me. She smiles warmly at me. "Nice to meet you Alex." She sighs and looks at Sam helplessly, like she doesn't want him to go but will be supportive anyway. "Look after your big brother for me?" she asks me.

I give her a nod, and I don't have to fake the smile I give her. I can't help it… I _do_ like her. Sam jerks his head at the door. "Ready?" he asks me.

Uh no. Definitely not. But I shrug 'sure' and lead the way out. Here goes nothing...

* * *

**The Next Day**

"Yo, Alexander!" Dean booms. "Wake up, already!"

What the… when did I fall asleep? And when did it become morning? I'm cramped in the back seat, my neck is stiff from sleeping sitting up, head leaned onto the window. Groggy and grumpy, I glare as I try to get my heavy eyes to cooperate and wake up. It's too bright. I look at the side of Sam's head resentfully. I earned that shotgun seat and Dean saying "youngest sits in the back" last night is not forgotten by me. Nope. AC/DC is blaring loudly and I rub one of my eyes with the heel of my hand, wondering how I slept through that racket. Not that I don't love AC/DC but, seriously. I'm impressed with myself. I guess I must have been really exhausted.

"I got you some breakfast," Dean says, and tosses a can of Pringles back at me without looking. I wasn't expecting it and am half-asleep and it hits me in the forehead. Ouch! I grab the can up and smack my oldest brother in the back of his head with it. _Watch where you throw stuff, jerk!_

" _Ow_!" He protests and I grin, am suddenly the most innocent person on planet earth, angelically smiling and opening the can of chips and popping one into my mouth with exaggerated saintliness. Sam shakes his head, grinning faintly at our antics. He returns his attention to whatever he's doing. Looking through something from the looks of it.

"So, Alex…" he says. "Al Beebak? Anita Bath?" I sit up ramrod straight. He's going through my wallet?! Yup, he's got all my fake credit cards I'm using right now and is reading through the stupid names I have on them with increasing amused incredulousness. "Ima _Butt_? …Yura Weiner?" He begins to laugh. "Ho Lee Fuk?" He looks back at me, shaking his head in mirth. "You're even worse than Dad and Dean."

"Not worse, _better_ ," Dean corrects cheekily, chortling and glancing back at me in the rearview as he grins at me proudly. I try to act like that doesn't make my day, try not to smile and glow. I look down to cover up my huge grin. I think up those fake, extremely juvenile names to amuse Dean, mostly. He really gets a kick out of it—Dad gets really aggravated and tells me to grow up. His sense of humor is sort of… nonexistent.

I shrug modestly at Dean's compliment and then I swipe my wallet away from Sam, start to put the cards back in there, remind myself not to leave my belongings strewn all over the car… at least not right now while Sam's with us. "Does anyone really fall for those names?" Sam asks, still grinning about it, looking at Dean and then me in humored disbelief. "I mean some of these are _really_ obviously fake. Actually, they _all_ are."

Dean shrugs, grinning. "People don't usually ask, Sammy. Guess they chalk it up to life being stranger than fiction."

"Speaking of fiction…" Sam kicks one of the paperback books at his feet over and I'm chagrinned as he picks a couple of them up. "I'm guessing these are yours?" He asks me, smirking, then reads the titles with a mocking tone. "'Love's Last Desire'? 'On the Tide of Romance'? 'Taken for Revenge, Bedded for Pleasure'?" Sam is practically giggling at me now. "You trying to keep Harlequin novels in business or something?" He asks and I sit back with my arms crossed and eyes narrowed, try and look like I don't give a crap. "What happened to Vonnegut and Tolkien?" he asks, turned around to face me, laughing at me.

I give him a _you suck_ face. "Hobbits just aren't as sexy as Fabio," Dean says and chuckles.

I'll kill either of them if they tell anyone, and I make sure my _you're dead to me_ scowl communicates that to them both. Instead, they just sort of chuckle in unison at my irritation, glance at each other, deeply amused. Great. So they're gonna team up on me again. Losers. Actually I'm smiling now to myself and this very familiar stomping ground of picking on each other and making fun of each other at any given opportunity. Sam's laughing and he lets the books fall back down to the floor. My one very embarrassing interest… romance. Because unlike my brothers, I have about zero experience in the department and no prospects… no one was ever too interested in the rough-around-the-edges tomboy who couldn't speak a word. So I live vicariously through others.

"Anyway, no," Dean says with an overly dramatic sigh. "Those novels are mine, obviously. You know I can't get enough of that dime store romance crap." Sam laughs at the thought and I do too, picturing Dean reading a romance novel with a rapt expression. I mean, he'll watch soap operas and stuff and blame me as the one who makes him watch them but that's definitely not true. He loves that crap and admits it when it's just me and him. It's good blackmail material if nothing else.

I offer Sam the can of Pringles and he eyes it dubiously. "You know how much cholesterol and sodium is in those things?" he asks.

"You know how much we don't _care_?" Dean retorts playfully, and I make a face at Sam. Suit yourself, Mr. Vegetables. He's always been sort of a health nut, picky and not into junk food. Weirdo. Well, more for me. I crunch down on another salty crisp, smacking loudly on purpose... and getting an annoyed look from Sam at the noise. I remember how much that always got on his nerves. I'd chuckle if I could. _Deal with it, bro. Give me my front seat back and maybe I'll quiet it down._

"I mean, would some apples or bananas once in awhile really hurt you guys?" Sam asks Dean.

"We love apples and bananas!" Dean says in faux-defensiveness, then cracks a shit-eating grin, "… if you mean banana pudding and apple pie, hell yeah!" Sam rolls his eyes and Dean laughs, cranks the music up really loud over Sam's complaints and rolls the windows down to let in the crisp, fresh fall air outside.

A few minutes pass and you know what? I feel sort of happy right now, my two brothers in the front seat and me here in the back. Call me crazy but I could maybe get used to this. It's not that bad. I wonder, for a second, if maybe Sam will come back, join us on the road again. Then I think about his normal life with Jess, his bright future as a lawyer or whatever. Why the hell would he want this shitty existence? Why would _anyone_? My good mood fades slightly.

"You know what, lemme call the Jericho hospital, see if maybe Dad's turned up there," Sam says when we pass the sign that says Jericho is seven miles off. I think maybe he's looking for an excuse to get Dean to turn down the AC/DC blasting through the car stereo. It works, either way, and my oldest brother turns the volume down substantially.

"Good thinking," Dean answers. And it _is_ good thinking, but I can hear how Dean's really stricken by the thought of Dad being in a hospital somewhere. His good mood is sullied. While I eat my very nutritious, Sam-approved breakfast, my twin calls 411, jots down the numbers of the hospital and morgue. He's always been really good at this part of the job… information gathering and research. He calls both numbers he gets, gives them Dad's description, asks if anyone who looks like that has shown up. He gets a no from the morgue, then calls the hospital.

"Okay, thank you," he says, and closes his phone, looks over at Dean. "All right. So, there's no one matching Dad at the hospital either. So… that's something, I guess."

Dean just glances at him. "Mm hmm," he says absently. Suddenly his attention is piqued and he squints at the road ahead, slows the car down. "Check it out," he says, and Sam and I do so in unison. A bunch of cop cars are clustered around a big metal bridge, blocking it off completely. Yellow crime scene tape is plastered all over the place. Dean pulls off to the side of the road and we all stare. I can see a car in the middle of the bridge and it seems to be the center of the crime scene. Decisively, Dean leans over Sam, opens the glove compartment and pulls out the little box of fake IDs.

"You wanna be FBI or federal marshals today, Al?" he asks. I grab my federal marshal badge and wink at him, scooting sideways toward my door. "Federal marshals it is," he says. Sam is looking at us wide-eyed and baleful and Dean gives him a _get over it l_ ook. "Let's go," he says, even as I'm grabbing the EMF meter from under the seat where it was shoved last.

"This is _so_ illegal," Sam hisses as we get out of the car and head toward the crime scene. I pocket the EMF meter, looking around furtively.

" _And_?" Dean asks Sam with a smug little sidelong smile and glance. "Just act like you own the place, _relax,_ follow my lead." Sam huffs unhappily. He's always been the do-gooder of the family I guess you could say. Never was too comfortable breaking the law.

I squint in the bright mid-morning sun. The bridge stretches over a river and some cops are down there poking around, looking for something. Who knows what. I'm following Dean toward the car where the sheriff and an officer are in deep conversation.

"...spotless," the officer is saying. He's inside the parked, empty car, looking at it in confusion. "It's almost _too_ clean."

"So, this kid Troy," the sheriff asks the officer. "He's dating your daughter, isn't he? How's Amy doing, anyway?"

 _Troy. Amy._ I know Dean is also saving the names to mind, silently cataloguing the information. "She's putting up missing posters downtown," the officer replies.

"You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn't you?" Dean asks, and the sheriff notices us, straights up and turns to face us. He takes in Dean's authoritative, I-belong-here swagger and my cool, narrow-eyed stare. Sam's just kinda there.

"And who are you?" he asks.

Dean and I flash our badges like we always do… quick and casual. "Federal marshals," he answers, giving off the air of boredom. The sheriff looks at the badges, which are already being tucked away. He looks dubious.

"You three a little young for marshals, aren't you?"

I make a face like _here we go again_ and head over to the car, careful to exude annoyance, like I get accused of being too young for the job all the time. Dean chuckles derisively. "Thanks, that's awfully kind of you," he replies sarcastically, and follows me over to the car, looking at it carefully.

"You _did_ have another one just like this, correct?" he asks.

I'm looking at the car, circling it slowly and not acknowledging the officer who is looking at me oddly. I know I don't look exactly like the consummate professional in my outfit—old beat up jeans, my 1977 Led Zeppelin shirt that used to be Dean's, the cargo jacket thrown over it, my very beat up old combat boots. But the trick to the bluff is to always act like you know something everyone else doesn't, like you own the place (just like Dean said). I study the car carefully, frowning a little deeper than normal for show, posturing myself. The car looks like it was parked there and whoever was driving it just disappeared or walked away. Subtly, I switch on the EMF meter in my pocket, look down at it, watch the levels spike. Well _hello_ ghosty… definitely some sort of spirit involved in this disappearance. The officer is looking at me weirdly—I think he can hear the EMF whining and crackling—but I give him a challenging, impatient glance and he looks away.

"Yeah, that's right," the sheriff is replying to Dean. "About a mile up the road. There've been others before that."

Dean and I exchange a glance. "So, this victim, you knew him?" Sam asks the sheriff who shrugs and nods.

"Small town like this, everybody knows everybody."

Dean circles the car to come stand near where I am. I discreetly give him our own little signal for EMF… I stick three fingers out sideways—pointer, middle, and ring—which makes a kind of E shape. He sees that and makes a _not surprised_ face. "Any connection between the victims, besides that they're all men?" Dean asks.

"No. Not so far as we can tell," says the sheriff.

"So what's the theory?" Sam asks, getting into his role now, sauntering over to Dean and I, squinting at the car and looking very thoughtful.

"Honestly, we don't know. Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?" The sheriff shrugs.

Dean decides to cop a rude, superior attitude. "Well, that is _exactly_ the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys," he mocks. We don't mean to but in perfect unison, Sam stomps on Dean's foot as I elbow him in the side.

Sam is smiling, strained and pissed. "Thank you for your time," he says, and starts to walk away, throwing a brusque "gentlemen," over his shoulder. The cops are all looking at us oddly.

Sam is striding fast ahead of us, and it's easy to tell how irritated he is from the short, angry steps and the way his shoulders are drawn up toward his ears. Dean catches up, looks back to see if he's being watched, and then smacks Sam in the back of the head, hard. I'm almost jogging to catch up to them.

" _Ow_!" Sam hisses indignantly as Dean falls into step beside him. "What was that for?!"

"Why'd you have to step on my foot?" Dean demands.

"Why do you have to talk to the police like that?" Sam retorts, then gives me the evil eye, because I also jabbed Dean and got away with it scott-free. "And why didn't you smack her, too?!"

Dean moves in front of Sam, stopping him from walking any further. "Come on dude, I don't hit girls." He gives him a look then suddenly looks at me. "I flick them in the neck." Before he even finished saying the words, he flicks his finger hard into the skin at the side of my neck. _Ouch_! Oh no you _didn't_. I know exactly what to do to get revenge and my hand shoots out, I grab him by the nipple through his shirt and twist hard. He yelps, jumping back slightly, covering himself with a hand, looking at me in wounded disbelief. "Jesus _Christ_!" he protests, offended by my retaliation. I just shrug. You asked for it. Sam is chortling lowly now and Dean gives us both dark looks. " _Come on_ ," he says angrily, vehemently. "They don't really know what's going on! We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're going to find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves. And don't touch my nipple ever again," he tells me authoritatively like he does after every time I do that. He's pointing a finger at me and glaring. I smirk at him.

Sam clears his throat, regulating his expression as he look over Dean's shoulder… another sheriff is approaching, and behind him, two FBI agents. "Can I help you folks?" the sheriff asks and as Dean turns around, his pissy expression expertly changes to easy going and polite.

"No, sir, we were just leaving," Dean says pleasantly enough, but I can hear the underlying _this is bullshit_ tone. As the FBI agents walk past us, he nods at each of them, and he can't resist another sarcastic jab. "Agent Mulder. Agent Scully."

Heh, that's pretty funny. He begins to walk back toward the car and we follow. He seems to suddenly be in a foul mood. "I need some friggin' _real_ food," he complains.

"What we _need_ is to find this Troy guy's girlfriend," Sam corrects him, ever the time conscious one.

" _What we neeeeeed is to find this Troy guy's girlfriend_ ," Dean copycats in a goofy, mocking voice, like he thinks Sam just said the stupidest thing of all time.

"Oh my _god,_ would you _grow up_?" Sam mutters.

* * *

We found Troy's girlfriend Amy downtown, plastering surfaces with missing person posters she obviously made herself. Dean immediately told her we were Troy's cousins from Modesto and even though she seemed a little surprised that Troy had never mentioned his three cousins to her before, she was too out of sorts and sad to really be properly suspicious. She and her friend Rachel agreed to sit down and answer some questions—Dean suggested the diner across the street and cracked a grin at Sam, like see, I can do two things at once: get info and stuff my face. Sam just rolled his eyes.

The girls told us that Troy's disappearance, how nothing had been abnormal, he'd been on his way home to her, then never showed up. Amy and Rachel told us how the more and more frequent disappearances has people talking ghost stories. Our ears perked up immediately when they told us about a local legend where a girl got murdered out on Centennial—the same place Troy disappeared from. According to this legend, she's still out there, hitchhiking, and whoever picks her up… disappears forever.

My brothers and I had exchanged a meaningful look after being told that little tidbit. That plus the EMF reading I picked up on Troy's car… pretty substantial lead, worth digging into. Dean asked more about Troy, trying to get a feel for the guy, profile him. Sam kept cutting in with questions of his own and I could tell Dean was both annoyed and proud. Annoyed because he's used to running the show, proud because Sam's still pretty resourceful and quick on the uptake. Anyway, after the girls excused themselves and left, asked us to contact them if we found anything, Dean stuffed his face with a greasy burger and fries, I had the kid-sized order of macaroni and cheese, Sam got a grilled chicken salad. He gave us both a bitch face when he ordered that. " _What_?" he'd asked at our amused, judgmental looks.

"Nothing," Dean grinned. "You enjoy your rabbit food, Sammy."

" _Sam_ ," my twin insisted with growing impatience. After lunch we went to the local town hall, found the local library where Sam and Dean proceeded to fight over the computer like little kids, trying to find out about this girl who was supposedly murdered on on Centennial. After Dean found nothing, Sam pretty much shoved him sideways and insisted "lemme try," changing the search parameters from murder to suicide… and finding an article from the 1980s titled _Suicide on Centennial._ We all leaned in to read it, almost cracking heads and Dean of course was all "geez you wanna give me some friggin' space?!"

So, a woman named Constance Welch jumped off a bridge into a local river off of Centennial after she found her two kids drowned in a bathtub… and the photo accompanying the article of the bridge in question? Looked pretty damn familiar. Dean clapped Sam on the shoulder, told him good crack detective work, suggested we go check out the bridge again. We realized, though, we'd have to wait until the cops left. We pretty much had to stake out the place, parking a mile away on a ridge overlooking the bridge, waiting for the cops to leave. After a couple hours, we gave up on it for awhile, went to the local laundromat to wash all of our sweaty, dirty clothes. Sam shook his head, told us how he has a washing machine _in_ his apartment… Dean and I tried not to look too jealous. That sounds really nice. We headed back to the crime scene around dusk, cops were still there… Sam scrolled around on his phone while Dean peered through binoculars.

Around sunset, the cops finally get their act together, tow Troy's car, and vamoose.

" _Showtime_ ," Dean says when the last cruiser pulls away. He starts the car, drives us down to the bridge. He parks at the end of it and we get out, start to poke around aimlessly, looking for any signs of… I dunno, anything. I've got one of Dad's full-sized tactical flashlights in hand. They're heavy, made out of metal, designed to be mounted onto rifles but when they're not onboard a gun, they double as weapons in hand-to-hand combat.

The river rushes below loudly. "So this is where Constance took the swan dive," Dean comments, leaning over the railing and looking into the choppy water briefly. I sweep the river and then the banks with the flashlight beam, not seeing anything interesting.

"So you think Dad would have been here?" Sam asks.

"Well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him," Dean says, not really giving a straight answer. Mostly because I'm pretty sure he has no idea. He starts walking, Sam trailing after. I'm still leaned over the railing, looking down at the water apprehensively. Maybe it's just the cold out here, but I feel like there is gooseflesh on the back of my neck. And knowing that this was the place where a vengeful spirit was born makes me all the more cautious.

"Okay, so now what?" Sam asks Dean, and I tear myself away from the bridge side railing, jog a couple steps to catch up to my brothers. The flashlight beam waves up and down on the bridge ahead as my arms swing.

"We keep digging until we find him," Dean says evenly. "Might take a while."

Sam stops walking, exasperated. "Yeah, well, maybe _you two_ do but… Dean, I _told_ you, I've gotta get back by—"

"Monday," Dean cuts him off, nodding impatiently, turning around to look at him. I'm standing kind of between them, sensing the tension. "Right. The interview." Dean smiles tightly. "Yeah, I forgot," he lies. I always know when he lies. "You're really serious about this, aren't you?" he asks Sam, and there's a ringing criticism and doubtfulness to his question. "You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl? Live the all-American dream in Suburbia?"

"Maybe," Sam replies neutrally. "Why not?"

"Does Jessica know the truth about you?" Dean asks. "I mean, does she know about the things you've done? The _life_ you've lived?"

I already know she doesn't, or at least I'm like ninety-nine percent sure... but Sam confirms my private theory. "No, and she's not ever _going_ to know." He's stepped closer to Dean and is giving him a very serious face, like this subject is off limits.

Dean pulls a mildly disgruntled face. "Well, _that's_ healthy." He shakes his head, looks at Sam calculatingly. "You can pretend all you want, Sammy," he says, and he's smiling knowingly now, shrugging slightly. "But sooner or later, you're going to have to face up to who you really are."

He turns and begins to walk away again, closing the subject… but Sam doesn't drop it. "And who's that?" he asks challengingly, following Dean again.

"You're one of us," Dean replies nonchalantly, and Sam hurries to get in front of Dean, confront him.

" _No_ ," he says loudly, "I'm _not_ like you. This is not going to be my life!"

Hanging back a little, sensing a fight is about to break out, I cross my arms and look away, not wanting part in this. Dean's getting fired up: " _You_ have a responsibility to—"

"To Dad?" Sam demands angrily. "And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures, Alex and I wouldn't even know what Mom _looks_ like. And what difference would it make?" He shrugs powerlessly, a little quieter now. "Even if we _do_ find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back."

Without warning, Dean grabs Sam by the front of his jacket and shoves him up against the railing of the bridge. Reacting in tandem, I'm striding forward a few steps then stopping short, not sure if I should intervene or not. All I know is that I didn't guess Dean would fly off the handle at Sam so soon after reuniting with him. Maybe it's some of the resentfulness he's been holding in all this time ever since Sam left. Dean currently seems to realize he's overstepped some bounds and he pauses, anger fading. "Don't talk about her like that," he says, soft and tense. "You may not remember her, but I _do_."

He lets go of Sam with a mild shove and backs up off him, then turns, begins to walk forward again. Sam looks at me darkly, like it's my fault Dean just did that to him and I just shrug helplessly. That's Dean for you.

"Guys," Dean says softly, and we both look at him, recognizing the urgent tone in his voice. About twenty feet from us, a woman in a breezy white dress with dark long hair stands barefoot on the bridge railing, facing outward, like she's about to jump. I shine the flashlight at her and the beam catches her attention—she looks back at us, haunted and agonized… and then suddenly looks away, steps forward off the edge, and plummets out of sight. We take off running toward her and when we get to the railing, we see nothing but the churning river below. "Where'd she go?!" Dean asks.

Sam is shaking his head slowly. "I don't know."

On the end of the bridge, we hear the Impala's engine starting, and the headlights suddenly snap on—we turn to look, mutually, I'm sure, all thinking _what the hell_?

Dean stares. "What the—"

"Who's driving your car?" Sam asks, and Dean doesn't take his eyes off his baby, just pulls his keys out of his pockets and jingles them. _Not good._ The car suddenly lurches forward, tires squealing, and we're backing up slowly, then turning to break into a full run, but the car is gaining fast and oh shit we're gonna die and beside me Dean is shouting "jump, jump, _jump_!" and pushing me forcefully toward the railing of the bridge.

I'm vaguely aware of my brothers taking flying leaps over the railing even as I'm jumping _up_ and catching onto one of the metal beams, shimmying upward in a frenzy, feet slipping and sliding on the cross-hatched metalwork that makes up the beam. Below me now by about seven feet, the car jerks to a halt and idles there, then turns itself off, goes dark. But who cares about the car. Heart hammering wildly I squint down into darkness, try to see my brothers. I dropped the flashlight and I can't see, and I'm panicking and scared because that's a long fall and I don't see either of them— _wait._

"Alex?! _Alex_!" Sam shouts. "Dean!" He's hanging onto a lower beam, he caught himself and didn't fall into the river, is halfway sitting on a ledge there. I whistle loudly and he looks up. I wave hello with a tight little smile on my face. Relief flickers across his features but not mine… I'm staring down at the body I just saw wash up at the edge of the river. _Oh god, Dean, no!_ I'm sliding down, feet hitting the ground hard as I grip the railing and lean over the edge, looking at Dean despairingly.

Sam follows my eye line. "Dean? _Dean_!" Sam calls, assuming the worst, too… and then Dean moves, looks up at us.

" _What_?" he demands crossly. He's covered in mud.

"Hey! Are you all right?" Sam asks.

Dean holds up one hand in an A-OK sign. "I'm super," he grumbles, and starts to get up.

Sam laughs, relieved, and scoots away from the edge, reaches up for my outstretched hand. I use my foot, pressed against the railing, to help leverage my hold and heave his heavy frame up. And he's trying to balance some of his weight onto one of the beams, make it easier for me… so I just yank more zealously, proving to him that I'm stronger than he gives me credit for. He tumbles forward up and over the railing, almost falling forward, then managing to catch himself.

"Damn, I forgot how strong you are," he comments breathlessly as he stands up, brushes himself off. For a minute, I'd thought Sam was dead and I suddenly hug him, like a two second hug, feeling ridiculous but also like I really had to do it. I draw back and nod tersely, mouth in a thin line—I'm sort of mortified at myself but also wishing I'd hugged him a little longer. He's looking at me in faint amusement even as I'm walking over and picking up the flashlight from where it fell. I'm already heading down the bridge to help Dean up the steep embankment, at least light the way. He's already halfway up and I give him a murderous look. _How dare you almost die on me?_

"Hug?" he asks as he gets to solid ground at my level, spreading his muddy arms wide and chuckling immaturely. He is covered, _completely,_ in river sludge. Ugh, gross… I hold up a warning finger at him. Hug me and you _die_ , stinky. He's got his mind on other stuff, anyway… he looks down the bridge at Sam and the Impala, starts off for both. "What the _hell_ did that crazy bitch do to my wheels?" He marches over to his car and yanks the hood up, inspecting every element carefully. Sam gives me a look, like, so Dean's still super into his car, huh? I shrug. Yup.

"Your car all right?" Sam asks when Dean finally shuts the hood.

"Yeah, whatever she did to it, seems all right now," Dean says lowly, then looks around angrily. "That Constance chick, what a _bitch_!" he shouts, like she should be able to hear him. He crosses his arms petulantly and sits on the hood of the car, glaring at nothing in particular.

"Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure," Sam comments. "So where's the job go from here, genius?"

Dean throws his arms up in frustration and lets them slap back down onto his knees as Sam settles beside him. Dean shakes his muddy hands uselessly, trying to flick some mud off. Sam and I are both grimacing. I can smell Dean from here, and I'm standing in front of them by like five feet. Looking at Dean with his nose wrinkled, Sam says, "You smell like a toilet."

Dean gives him an unamused scowl. "Bite me."

"Take a shower first," Sam quips, getting a severely bitchy face from Dean, who suddenly makes to grab Sam and cover him with the sludge, too… but Sam jumps back, laughing when he eludes Dean's sudden try.

* * *

"Hurry it up Sammy, _geez_ , Alex would have had us in three years ago!" Dean complains as Sam picks the lock to motel room number ten.

Imagine our surprise when Dean slapped his credit card down (which read Hector Aframian), and the guy at the front desk of this dump had asked if the Aframians were having a reunion, said "that other guy, Burt Aframian, he came in and bought out a room for the whole month."

"Nope, must be a coincidence," Dean had said, even as his eyes skimmed the motel register, trying to see which room Dad had checked in to. The roster said room ten.

Dean—still covered in dry, cracked, stinking mud—and I are keeping a lookout, shielding Sam's very illegal actions with our bodies. I've got my duffel bag strap slung over my shoulder because I am so desperate for a shower. Dean's gonna have to fight me for dibs.

Kneeling down and jamming the lock pick around wildly, Sam looks up at Dean in annoyance. "I'm out of practice, okay? Unlike you two, I don't constantly break into places."

"Oh well good for _you_ ," Dean mutters as Sam finally has success and the door cracks open. We hurry inside and Sam closes the door behind us. It's dim in here, the curtains are drawn and the lights are off, we all blink, trying to adjust to the difference in light. Whoa, Dad was definitely here. As my eyes regain the ability to see, I gape. Every vertical surface has papers pinned to it: maps, newspaper clippings, pictures, notes. It's a _mess_ and for just a second I think we must have the wrong room. There are books on the little cheap desk and assorted junk on the floor and bed. It looks like he was living here. The stale air in the room smells faintly like rotting food and salt.

"Whoa," Sam sums up. Dean turns on a light by the bed and picks up a half-eaten hamburger sitting there. Sam steps over a line of salt on the floor and it really looks like he left in a hurry. I walk alongside one of the walls that has a bunch of profiles of the guys who disappeared, numbered neatly in Dad's handwriting. Dad was trying to piece together the same mystery we are.

Dean recoils as he sniffs the burger. "I don't think he's been here for a couple days at least."

Sam's crouched on the floor, fingering the salt line, troubled. "Salt, cats-eye shells… he was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in."

Dean comes over to me, staring at the papers pinned to the wall. Sam stands up. "What've you got here?"

"Centennial Highway victims," he says, and his eyes scan the profiles rapidly. "I don't get it. I mean, different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?"

Sam has crossed the room and is looking at the other paper-strewn wall, as I frown at the shirts piled on top of the TV. Really, Dad, you demand such absolute neatness out of us and then live like a total slob on your own? "Dad figured it out," Sam suddenly says, and Dean and I turn to look at him questioningly.

"What do you mean?"

Sam indicates a printout that looks familiar. "He found the same article we did. Constance Welch. She's a woman in white."

Oh my god. That makes sense now… and Dean realizes too, turns to the wall of the disappeared guys. "You sly dogs," he comments wryly and I know why. Women in white… it's a legend where a woman, driven to temporary insanity after her man cheats, commits violent, murderous acts. So that meant that _Constance_ killed her children… they didn't just drown by accident. And then she'd killed herself but blamed her husband for all of it. Damn. "All right, so if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it," Dean says.

"She might have another weakness," Sam says as I'm scrawling something onto a scrap of paper I find on the little desk.

"Well, Dad would want to make sure," Dean replies. I finish writing and hold up the scrap of paper, point to it.

**Maybe he didn't get that far.**

It's my reply to Dean's idea about Dad finding the corpse and wasting it. That's the frustrating thing I have to deal with constantly… I can never quite keep with with the flow of a conversation this way. Anyway, Sam and Dean see what I wrote and both look at me grimly. "Aw come on, a punkass little vengeful spirit didn't finish Dad off. Not now, not ever," Dean says, dismissing the thought entirely. "He'd dig her up. Does it say where she's buried?" he asks Sam.

"No, not that I can tell. If I were Dad, though, I'd go ask her husband." Sam taps the picture of Joseph Welch. The caption says he's thirty; the article dates to 1981, so he'll be, what, like sixty-four now. " _If_ he's still alive," Sam adds.

Sounds like a plan to me, but right now… I need a shower so bad. I point to the bathroom and make eye contact with Dean. He reads my mind. "Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Don't mind me." He's already sitting down on the bed, cracking a fond, you-owe-me-one smile my way. He was gonna let me go first anyway. I give him a little smile and go take one of my famous two-minute showers. I feel human again and when I get out, dry off, I can hear them talking through the thin motel wall. Something about bitch, jerk. Oh my god, that schtick again. I shake my head, chuckling internally.

I start to get dressed, not really paying attention to the conversation until I catch this part: "…found out anything new about her voice?" Sam asks. I listen closely now, interest piqued.

"No, Sam, if we did don't you think I would have _told_ you?" Dean replies. He sounds a little offended.

"Uh, no… it's not like we've been _pen pals_ the past four years," Sam says curtly.

Dean sighs wearily. "Right, well. No. Same deal." He sounds heavy and grim. "No voice, no leads, no idea why the thing that killed Mom took her ability to speak. I took her to a specialist last year while Dad was off on some job... same thing. Vocal chords work fine but it's like she's just been put on mute. Nothin' doin'." There's a long pause and I've stopped, clean shirt in my hands, forgotten. "She's never gonna speak, Sam. She's just not."

Hearing that deflates me a little bit. I mean, I _know_ that. I resigned myself to it a long time ago but… I dunno, sometimes I think it'd be nice to have hope that someone or something out there could fix me. Dean even once took me to a witch, which must _really_ mean he loves me: he hates witches, but thought maybe this one could fix me with some spell or magic. But obviously, she hadn't been able to do a damn thing for me.

"Don't you think she should learn sign language or something?" Sam asks, voice filled with concern.

"Why? The only people she needs to talk to are me and Dad," Dean replies. He hates this topic and Sam knows it. "Well, mostly me. Not like everyone out there in the big wide world knows sign language, anyway. She gets by fine."

"She deserves _better_ than fine," Sam says firmly, and I feel surprised… touched. He sounds really defensive and caring.

"Oh, really? It's nice to know you're so concerned," Dean says sarcastically, probably thinking Sam has no right to say that to him after he ran off.

I pull my shirt on and I'm done… ball my dirty stuff up on top of my duffel and pick it all up, go out. My brothers glance at each other. "Ah, finally," Dean jokes, and slaps his knees, stands up, acts like he wasn't just deeply upset about my condition two seconds ago. "I'm gonna get cleaned up." He looks at me pointedly. "You should get your hundred in sometime soon, Al."

Yeah, _yeah_. He disappears into the bathroom, shuts the door behind himself. Sam turns to me. "Your hundred?" he asks, then shakes his head, laughs softly, but not pleasantly. The shower starts in the bathroom. "Dad still has you two doing that crap, huh?"

It's not crap, it's physical discipline and the reason I could lift Sam off that bridge last night. He sees my look of disagreement and sighs softly. "Sorry, it's just… the way Dad raised us. It's not right. I don't think it was right."

I shrug. I agree, more than he knows. But I'm getting down on the floor and doing my hundred pushups, concentrating on the right form—back straight, chin pointing at the floor, hips tucked in. All the way down, all the way up, steady and paced with controlled breathing—aiming for twenty pushups per thirty seconds, Marine Corps style just like Dad taught us. Sometimes, he has Dean and I go to two or three hundred which I can barely do. _Mind over matter, Alex,_ he always tells me, voice overwrought with disappointment when I start to tire. I try so hard to be strong enough. Good enough. I don't want to be seen as the weakest one, but I always am.

Dad always told us if you ever have to run, you're gonna be able to run _far._ If you ever have to fight, you're gonna be able to fight _hard_. If you have to shoot it's gonna be straight, if you have to survive it's gonna be second nature to you. That's the way he raised us and the reason, I guess, why he treated us like his _cadets_ more than his _kids_. That's what Sam hates.

It takes me the two minutes and thirty seconds it always does and when I get to the hundredth pushup, I decide to do one more… a hundred and one… and done. I wish Dean had told me to do my hundred _before_ the shower. I'm sweating a little bit. _Whatever_. I stand up, dust my hands off for effect. Sam just looks at me sort of dubiously. He's standing near the dresser now, has turned around to me, is holding a picture in his hands. "You always look so _happy_ in our family pictures," he teases, shows me the photo he's holding. In the picture, Dad's holding Sam, Dean's sitting on the hood of the Impala next to Dad, holding onto my waist tightly. Everyone else is smiling but I just look pissed off. Yup, that's me. Giving off the _I hate everything_ vibe since I was a kid, apparently.

The shower stops and I go look over the walls again. Sam's phone makes a noise and he fiddles with it for a couple minutes. I stand there and try to look occupied but really I'm just feeling very uncomfortable and weird, not sure how to act around Sam.

Dean finally comes out of the bathroom, clean and looking like himself again. He grabs his leather jacket up—he wears that thing constantly, it's his favorite. He shrugs it up onto one shoulder as he crosses the room. "Dudes I'm starving, I'm gonna grab a little something to eat in that diner down the street. You want anything?"

"No," Sam says.

"Aframian's buying," Dean coaxes. "Or maybe even the lovely Yura Weiner, huh, Al?" He shoots me a playful smirk but Sam still shakes his head.

"Nah."

"Suit yourself," Dean says, and motions for me to come along. I was already planning on it. I feel to awkward to be around Sam alone for much longer, anyway, I think he wants to call his girlfriend or whatever… oh _crap_. Dean and I see the police car at the same time and the motel clerk, who is talking to the two officers we ran in to yesterday at the bridge. The clerk is pointing at us and Dean suddenly grins widely, speaks without moving his mouth. "Be cool, kiddo," and he turns around, snaps his phone open to call Sam. I watch as the officers start to approach. Not good. Just what we needed.

"Dude, five-oh, take off," he mutters into the phone, and glances back at the cops nervously. Sam says something unintelligible. "Uh, they kinda spotted me," Dean says. "Go find Dad." He snaps the phone shut and turns around, smiling jovially at the approaching officers. "Problem, officers?"

"Where's your other partner?"

"Partner?" Dean asks innocently. "What, what other partner?"

The sheriff glances over his shoulder and jerks his thumb towards the motel room. Dean fidgets and I watch one of the officers turn, begin to head toward the motel room Sammy's in… and decide this is as good a time as any to give Sam a chance to bail. I turn and begin to run, make a break for it, and my sudden attempt at escape sends everyone into a flurry of movement.

"Hey, _hey_!" I hear Dean shouting, then one of the officers is shouting " _stop, hey_!" And I'm abruptly slammed to the ground from behind. My chin collides into the pavement painfully, searing pain shoots across the skin there, my teeth clack together and I think I bite the side of my tongue by accident. _Ow, ow, shit!_ I think I can taste the concrete… I can definitely taste blood. But I can see Sam slipping out of the motel room when I crane my neck around… he's already out of sight, disappearing behind the far side of the building. Excellent. I'm hauled to my feet, hands behind my back, and I feel the officer snapping cuffs onto my wrists roughly, ouch, a little too tightly. Dean sees my bloody chin and grimace of discomfort and he looks murderous.

"Hey, take it easy!" he thunders at the officer who is handling me roughly. Dean ran after me, too, I guess to try and stop the officer who tackled me… but he's being held in place by the other cop, like he's about to be cuffed. I spit out a mouthful of blood onto the ground beside me.

"We'll take it _easy_ when you answer some _questions_ ," the officer holding Dean says, and manhandles him back toward the police cruiser. "Fake US Marshal… fake credit cards… you got anything that's real?"

Dean smiles facetiously, the bad attitude at nuclear levels. "My _boobs_ ," he snaps, and he's slammed down onto the hood of the car face first and cuffs are clicking onto his wrists. I'm slammed down too—cue another acidic scowl from Dean—and the officer is patting me down, takes my knife from where it's holstered in my back belt loop—oh _hell_ no dude… "You both have the right to remain silent—"

I can't help it, I begin to laugh crazily at that comment. And of course it's silent, just a bunch of short breaths but my face is totally contorted with a huge grin and squinty eyes and Dean is looking at me like are you serious? _Haaaaha oh my God_ , I have the right to remain _silent_ , oh if only they knew… but Dean looks kind if pissed that I think it's funny. Sometimes I think he's more touchy about the subject than I am.

We're both forced into the backseat of the cruiser and Dean's looking at me grudgingly and I shrug. _What_? Sam got away, don't look at me in that tone of voice. Not the first time we've been carted away by the police. We always figure out a way to get out.

He's looking at my bloody chin unhappily. He's always upset when I get hurt, unless he's the one inflicting the pain—like when he flicked me today, or when he said he couldn't find Dad alone… with me standing right there.

I just look at him, give him an exasperated look. _I'm fine, would you relax?_

* * *

Sheriff Pierce comes back into the room, carrying a box now. Dean's sitting at one end of the table, arms folded casually, I'm to his left at the other side of the table. We sat in the back of that damn cruiser for like an hour while the cops poked around Dad's room and sealed it off as another crime scene. It looks like they are gonna point the finger at us for the disappearances, which is friggin' hilarious. They've already questioned Dean once, but he just made joke after joke and pissed off the sheriff real good. He's coming back again for more now, I guess. "So you want to give us your real name?" the sheriff asks Dean. He sets the mysterious box he's carrying down onto the table.

"I told you, it's Nugent. Ted Nugent and this here's my friend Stevie Nicks," he says without missing a beat.

The cop follows his gaze to me, sighs. He seems to think I look too young and innocent for all this. "You wanna tell me your name, sweetheart?" he asks me, a little gentler than how he addresses Dean. I look at him silently, irritated. "Look, your friend here's in a lot of trouble but maybe you can give us some information we can work something out, huh?" I can't reply, even if I wanted to and all I wanna do is tell him to shove it where the sun don't shine. The sheriff looks back at Dean. "'Stevie's' still exercising her right to silence, huh?"

Dean is incensed at that comment, true angry emotion flashing across his eyes. "I told you _already_ man, she's mute all right? She _can't_ talk!"

The sheriff doesn't believe it, which is making both of us mad. "Yeah, save the story for the judge. And keep that temper in check or you'll find yourself cuffed to this table." He pauses, leveling Dean and then me with a serious stare. "I'm not sure you realize just how much trouble you're in here, kids."

Dean sits back with a douchey expression on his face. "We talkin', like, misdemeanor kind of trouble or, uh, squeal like a pig trouble?" he asks with calculated smugness.

"You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall along with a whole lot of Satanic mumbo-jumbo. Boy, you and your little girlfriend here are officially suspects."

Dean ignores the girlfriend comment. People make that mistake constantly and usually he corrects them, but today he's in rare form. " _That_ makes sense," he wisecracks. "Because when the first one went missing in '82 I was _three_ and _she_ wasn't even born!"

The sheriff doesn't bat an eye. "I know you've got partners. One of 'em's an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing. So tell me. _Dean_." We're both startled that the sheriff knows his name. He reaches into the box and then tosses down a very familiar leather-covered book onto the table. "This his?"

We stare, unable to hide our shock. Dad's journal. He guards that thing with his _life_. Maybe he's in more trouble than we think. He wouldn't just leave it. The sheriff sits on the edge of the table and flips through the familiar pages of the journal, which is more like a huge information library, once you get past the first few personal entries toward the front: newspaper clippings, illustrations, notes… "I thought that might be your name," he says. "See, I leafed through this. What little I could make out—I mean, it's nine kinds of crazy. But I found this, too."

He opens the journal to a page that reads _DEAN 35-111_ in Dad's bold handwriting. There's nothing else on that page. Dean and I glance at each other briefly, because we immediately know what the numbers are. Coordinates. So Dad's not even in Jericho anymore, is he? Dean seems to be thinking the same thing and is now completely disenchanted, over everything, _done_.

"Now," the sheriff says. "You're stayin' right here till you tell me _exactly_ what the hell that means."

"It's my high school locker combo," Dean lies flatly, impatiently, sitting back and giving the impression of utter boredom.

The sheriff just narrows his eyes and crosses his arms. "I'll give you two a couple minutes, see if some alone time jogs your memory." He leaves the room, shuts the door behind himself and Dean leans close to me, about to start in about Dad's journal, but I shake my head no, nod once toward the door. Dean follows my gaze, sees how the sheriff is watching us hawkishly from the little viewing window in the doorway.

"This sucks," Dean mutters. "This is such BS." He crosses his arms and looks at me in mild appraisal. "You okay?"

I just shrug my hand out, like _whatever_ —no, I'd be okay if we weren't in the friggin' police station right now. If these people find out who we really are we're in trouble, and it's only a matter of time before the fingerprints come back and they incarcerate us for the actual crimes we've committed… fraud, robbery, grave desecration, evasion and inter-state flight… the list goes on for awhile. So… yeah. I'm _great_. I prop an elbow onto the table, lean my cheek against my fist, stare at the wall across from myself. I hope Sam's okay out there. He must really appreciate us dragging him into this mess. Wait until he finds out Dad's not even in town anymore.

The sheriff comes back in a few minutes later, begins to question Dean again about the journal, the murders, my name, the numbers in the journal and what they mean. I'm fed up. I've _been_ fed up. I'm staring down at the table with my forehead propped into my hand as the sheriff asks my brother question after question. The sun goes down and he keeps at it and I want to jump across the table and get him to _shut up_.

"Now tell me, son, what do these numbers mean?" the sheriff asks.

"I don't know how many times I gotta tell you," Dean says, and his patience is saintly. Me on the other hand, I'm ready to start ripping walls down and drop kicking police in the face at this point. "It's my high school locker combo."

"We gonna do this all night long?" the sheriff asks, wearing thin in the patience department.

A deputy leans into the room. "We just got a 911, shots fired over at Whiteford Road."

"All right, well, let's continue this just a little later on," the sheriff says, standing up and putting his stupid hat on, pulling out a pair of cuffs. He snaps Dean's wrist into one silver bracelet, puts mine in another and then literally cuffs us to the table—there's a metal loop there just for that. It's uncomfortable because my wrist is cuffed against the wire loop and the sheriff snaps the cuff really tight so that it digs into my skin—Dean takes one look at that and his head whips around to the sheriff, who's leaving the room. "Hey, what gives!?" Dean demands, indignant.

"Maybe you shoulda been more cooperative," the sheriff replies with a facetiously sympathetic shrug, and shuts, locks the door behind himself.

"Son of a _bitch_ ," Dean growls and yanks uselessly at the metal clasp around his wrist. "What an assh—" he stops mid sentence, squints at Dad's journal which is still in front of us. "Well well, what have we here?" I follow his gaze. What is he… oh. I see it too. A single little paper clip pokes out of the journal. Dean pulls it out, and looks at it, smiling to himself. "Thanks, Dad." He smirks at me.

* * *

Dean shimmies down the fire escape below me, carrying Dad's journal. He jumps the last few feet, turns back and reaches his arms up like he wants me to jump to him. I give him _piss off and move outta the way_ look, and he throws his hands up, steps to the side, annoyed. "Fine, but if you break your ankle—" he starts, even as I land solidly, raise a single eyebrow at him, already start walking forward, toward the end of the alley, leaving him to sigh gruffly. "You're a regular Bruce Lee, aren't you," he complains, catching up to me. He's pulling his phone out to call Sam—we definitely had to get our stuff back before making our escape: phones, Dean's gun and wallet, and of course, my most prized possession: It's a ka-bar knife, the most deadly combat knife there is, and was developed by the US Marines. Its carbon steel clip point blade cuts pretty much anything open and it is my _baby_.

Dean calls Sam as we skulk around the end of the alley, on high alert and looking back and forth, trying to make sure we're not seen by law enforcement. I hear one side of the conversation as I examine my knife then re-holster it. "Hey, it's me… fake 911 phone call? Sammy, I don't know, that's pretty illegal," he chuckles, "Took you long enough, though." Pause. "Yeah okay but listen, we gotta talk…" pause. "Sammy, would you shut up for a second?" Pause. "Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you. He's gone. Dad left Jericho. I've got his journal." Pause. "Yeah, well, he did this time." Pause. "Ah, the same old ex-Marine crap, when he wants to let us know where he's going." Pause. "I'm not sure yet." Pause. "Sam? _Sam_!"

I look at Dean, frozen by the scared, urgent tone in my brother's voice. He's looking at the phone in something close to panic. He looks at me and I know something's wrong. My heart drops completely at what he says next.

"Sam's in trouble. I think he went to Constance's house." He looks out at the street beside us. "We gotta go, _now_."

* * *

We race over to Breckenridge road, the address Sam told Dean he was heading to, in a stolen car Dean hot-wired after smashing the driver's side window in… we find an old decrepit house that's dark but there's a familiar black car parked in front of it and Dean and I get out of the stolen car and we race toward the Impala. For a minute I'm so afraid we're going to find an empty car or even worse, Sam dead…

My foot catches over something sticking out of the ground and the thought is cut short. _Oof!_ I face plant into the dusty ground and I look back as I'm already pushing myself back up… and see that I fell over a tire iron. Hey, how convenient. I grab it up and continue to run to Dean, who is… firing his pistol at his car? What the… oh _shit,_ as I practically screech to a halt beside Dean, I can see ghostly spirit hovering above Sam who is sitting in the driver's seat, he's screaming loudly. The gunshots seem to startle the ghost, and she disappears for a second and Sam suddenly throws the car into drive and screeches tires, heading straight for the house. The Impala smashes through the front of the house even as Dean and I are running after it, Dean yelling Sam's name.

We stumble in through the wreckage, Dean gets to Sam first, starts to pull him out through the open passenger window. "Sam! You okay? Can you move?" Sam says yeah he can.

I'm standing a few feet off, frozen as I watch the ghost of Constance Welch picking up a large framed photograph. In it, she's posing with two children, a boy and a girl, and her expression trembles wrathfully, she looks up and me and glares, her pretty face suddenly twists into something horrible and I am flying backwards, smashing into a wall hard and I hear Sam and Dean yell my name. I hear something smash and hear them both make sounds of pain, I'm panting and looking up—Constance pinned Sam and Dean against the car with a heavy looking old bureau—and then I see my tire iron laying where I dropped it. "Al, don't!" Dean shouts, but I'm already doing it. I run for it, grab it up and swing the tire iron at Constance and the ghost flickers, dissipates… where'd she go? "Behind you!" Dean shouts and I whirl… then suddenly the lights flicker and the ghost of Constance looks around, seeming to be afraid. Water begins to pour down the staircase and she goes over to it, watching. I edge away even as I hear Sam and Dean shoving the bureau off of themselves… at the top of the stairs are a boy and a girl. They hold hands and speak in chorus. "You've come home to us, Mommy."

On either side of me, two sets of hands grab onto my arms and pull me back, keep holding on. Sam and Dean stare along with me as the ghost children suddenly move, appearing behind Constance and embrace her tightly. She screams horribly and her image begins to flicker wildly—Sam and Dean's hands tighten on me and we're all backing up on instinct… in a surge of energy, still screaming, Constance and the two children melt into a puddle in the floor then are just _gone_.

"You crazy kid," Dean breathes, lets go of me, makes me look at him by turning my head with his hand. "You okay?" I wave him away. Fine, I'm fine. I just need a new back bone, I think I just ruined the one I have.

Satisfied that I'm gonna live, Dean nods, walks forward a little, examining the water on the floor. "So this is where she drowned her kids," he says thoughtfully. "This house."

"That's why she could never go home," Sam surmises. "She was too scared to face them."

Dean turns, smiling at Sam, pleased. "You found her weak spot. Nice work, Sammy." He walks back over toward his car, slaps Sam on the chest where he's been injured and keeps heading toward his car. Sam laughs through the pain and turns to look at Dean.

"Yeah, I wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freak?"

"Hey, saved your ass," Dean retorts.

"I don't know _how,_ cuz ghosts don't really care about bullets… they care about _iron_." He gestures to me meaningfully. I'm still holding the tire iron.

Dean shrugs. "Eh, I'm the brawn, she's the brains." He's crouching down to examine his car.

"What's that make me?" Sam asks, amused.

"The little bitch who screwed up my car," Dean says and gestures dramatically at the passenger-side headlight, as if the world has ended. "This headlight is smashed... this _headlight_ is smashed!"

I walk over and smack him in the back of the head with my hand. "Ow!" he protests. I give him a lecturing look and he just makes a sullen face. "I'm gonna _kill_ you both," Dean grumbles, staring at the busted headlight.

* * *

We pull up in front of Sam's apartment building. It's super early morning, like six am. We haven't slept tonight—we headed here straight after digging up Constance's bones and burning them… just to be on the safe side. Another vengeful spirit laid to rest, and in record time too. We did a good job, the three of us.

Sam looked up the coordinates Dad left and it's someplace named Blackwater Ridge in Colorado. Dean tried to talk him into coming with us, but Sam hedged, said he had to be at his interview. I guess I can't blame him. Dean was obviously disappointed, still is. Maybe hoping Sam will change his mind last minute. I dunno. I'm disappointed, too, but managing not to show it yet. I had known this would happen so I'm not sure why I can't just accept it.

Sam gets out when Dean throws the car into the park. I get out too, to reclaim my front seat. We make the switch and he leans down to look through my open window. I can't believe he's leaving already and manage to give him a little smile. "So, call me if you find him?" Sam asks.

Dean nods automatically. "And maybe I can meet up with you two later, huh?" Sam says.

"Yeah, all right," Dean says, trying to sound like he's fine and doesn't care either way.

Sam turns his attention to me. "Bye, Mouse. Text me sometime, okay?" I nod and surprisingly, he reaches out and ruffles my hair, a crooked little smile on his face, then he pats the car door twice and turns away, heads toward the building. Dean leans toward the passenger door, one arm going over the back of my seat.

"Sam!" He turns around.

Dean looks at our brother for a minute, smiling kind of in reminiscence. "...you know, we made a hell of a team back there," he indicates us all in turn. "The three of us." he trails off, smiling.

Sam is smiling too but faintly, a little sadly, nodding. "Yeah."

I feel a visceral pain in my chest. Sadness and loss and I have to look down a minute to hide my expression. "All right," Dean says. "Seeya, Sammy."

" _Sam_ ," Sam corrects ruefully, shaking his head and chuckling good naturally. We pull away and I wave, trying to give him a cheerful smile, but I'm struggling, bad. Sam waves back, watching us go and I watch him in the rearview mirror beside my window. There's a lump in my throat and it won't go away.

Dean sighs noisily, taps the steering wheel impatiently. "All right, so. Colorado," he mutters. "Why's this feel like a wild goose chase?"

Dunno. I'm looking down and trying not to cry. Oh my god. _No please don't cry arghhh…_ I hate crying in front of anyone, but a couple tears leak out and I take in a few of those dead giveaway weepy breaths—I try to turn away and disguise the noise with movement, but Dean's head whips sideways to look at me. "Aw, _no_ , Al, don't do _that_ …" he pulls over and lets the car idle in park, puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me a little closer whether I like it or not, his hand rubbing my arm soothingly. I'm mortified, mostly because this is so telling about how I actually feel about Sam… that my _whatever_ attitude is a lie… not only a lie I tried to tell to my brothers, but also to myself.

"Hey, it was fun while it lasted, right?" Dean asks, trying to make it better. He sighs gustily, pauses while I stare ahead through watery eyes, sniffing and wiping at my cheeks uselessly. "You know, I wanted to say I'm sorry that I said what I did about not wanting to do this alone," he says and squeezes my shoulder reassuringly. I look at him sidelong. He's not looking at me, he's looking down and seems regretful but then he smiles down into his lap. "I mean, as long as I got you, I'm good. Better than good." He finally looks at me and rubs my arm again then pulls me a little close, where my forehead smashes into his neck and presses a kiss onto my my hair. "It's gonna be okay, sweetheart, all right? I promise."

I smile a little, tears ebbing. I love it when he calls me that… but I usually try to act like I don't, rolling my eyes or making a face. Trying to be tough like him. The funny thing is, Dean acts like a hard ass around other people and around Dad, but he's a teddy bear deep down. I guess I'm sorta the same. I hug my arm around him and shut my eyes for a second. Dean is my absolute hero, my favorite person in the world, the only one I have ever been able to fully depend on, ever. If nothing else, I know he'll never leave me like everyone else always does. I don't know what I'd do without this jackass. I love him so much.

He suddenly rubs his knuckles on the top of my head, giving me an affectionate, annoying noogie and I push back, shoving him, laughing silently. _You jerk._ He's got his hands up to defend himself against the swipe I make for his head, and he chuckles as I settle back into my seat. He reaches for the gear shift… then stiffens. "Hey, wait… why is the clock…" he trails off and I look, too. The colon between the hour and the minutes is stuck. We're checking our wristwatches at the same time. They aren't ticking anymore. "Oh no, no, _no,_ " he says as we both realize something _bad_ is happening, and we're both scrambling out of the car, running toward the apartment building at a breakneck pace—noticing that the lights on Sam's apartment building are flickering tellingly. Dean lets loose a very grim " _son of a biiiitch_ " as we race into the building. We tear up the stars to the second floor and Dean kicks the door to Sam's apartment without hesitation. " _Sam_!"

We hear him screaming and we run toward the bedroom—my heart is hammering and I am scared shitless, freaked out— _what is going on_!? I freeze in the doorway, shocked at what I see. Sam is laying on the bed, an arm raised to shield his face from the fire that's spread, unnaturally, across the ceiling. " _Jess_!" Sam is screaming, and then I see her, and I almost fall over. She's on the ceiling, pinned there brokenly like a ragdoll, blood dripping from her stomach, her face frozen in pain and shock. Flames roil around her like a tempest and I can see from her skin color that she's already dead and probably has been for a little while. I'm horrified and stuck in place. "Sam! _Sam_!" Dean yells and pulls Sam off the bed, then pushes him back toward me. My twin struggles the whole way, screaming for his girlfriend even as the flames begin to fan wildly, catching everything in the room on fire. A fireball flings itself downward to where Sam just was and the obscene heat blows me back slightly. "No! _Nnooo_!" Sam is screaming, even as Dean manhandles him out of the room and grabs a handful of my jacket, too, shoving me back, forcing me to move.

"Out, _out_!" he commands thunderously, dragging Sam out and into the hall.

"Jess! _No_!" My twin's struggling so hard that he's about to hurt Dean—arms flailing, he's desperate to run back in there and it's taking everything Dean has to control him. "Get these people _out_ , Alex!" Dean thunders and I respond like Dad always taught us to: immediately, without a second thought, focused on the objective.

I start to blow on my silver whistle—it's always on a chain around my neck, tucked under my shirt—loudly and repeatedly to get people out of their apartments even as I run down the hallway, looking for the fire alarm which will be more effective. I find it at the end of the hallway, and it's the old fashioned kind you can to break open to trigger. Without hesitation I draw back and smash the glass with my jacketed elbow. I think I feel a deep cut but I don't even know, I'm too high on adrenaline to really notice. The alarm begins to blare loudly and people start to poke their heads out into the hallway and Dean is shouting "go, go, _go_!" I'm running back to Sam and Dean… I think Dean just punched Sam in the face—cuz he's sprawled on the floor and looks stunned. "She's already _dead_ Sam!" Dean is shouting. "Now get on your _feet_ and _move_!" He yanks him up and drags him along. Sam seems shellshocked, stumbling oddly, letting Dean pull him forward as I bring up the rear, looking back behind us—flames are spilling out into the hallway unnaturally fast.

We make it out onto the lawn in front of the building and Sam is going nuts again, screaming and shouting for Jess. Dean yells at him to pull himself together and Sam just falls into a crouch and puts his head in his hands, weeping miserably as firetruck sirens wail through the air. He falls forward onto the palms of his hands, shaking with grief, and I crouch down beside him, sitting on my heels, distressed and sickened and putting a hand on his back, trying to help him somehow. Dean stands back looking at us, breathing in and out rapidly. He's horrified and it shows. Sam is shaking his head, mumbling " _this can't be real, this isn't happening, oh my god no, no, please no..._ "

And I don't even know what happens for a few minutes, it's just Sam sick with sorrow and Dean staring up at the fiery window and firemen shouting and smoke billowing and my stomach wanting vomit everything up.

Some paramedics come over, try and treat us… Sam for shock, me for my elbow. But Sam refuses and I wave the EMT away, annoyed. Seriously, a bloody cut elbow is the least of my worries right now. What the hell just happened? Wasn't that how Mom died? Burning on the ceiling?

As if he's reading my mind, Dean, standing right next to us, shakes his head hollowly, deeply troubled. "This is way too similar to the night Mom died," Dean says softly. "That's exactly how Dad said he found mom. _Exactly_." Sam looks up at Dean, stricken, his face tearstained.

Some cops come and make us move behind a perimeter they've set up and it's loud, confusing, chaotic. A bunch of apartment residents are buzzing around with questions and some bystanders come over to gawk. Sam's blank, staring at the building with this look of sheer, abject horror and sadness and complete loss on his face. He silently turns away, walks off toward the car, and Dean watches him go. I follow Sam after a minute, second guessing myself the whole way.

He's standing by the trunk and it's open, he's staring down into it blankly. He looks up and over at me and I look at him with all the sadness I feel inside. I'm so, so sorry. I see that he's got some of her blood on his forehead and I hesitate, then reach up and smear it away with the sleeve of my jacket. He looks at my sleeve, sees the blood. His expression darkens measurably, he picks up a shotgun and begins to load it with embittered focus. I can see more tears are rolling down his cheeks, but his face is like stone, and it's a strange effect. I don't know what to do.

Dean is coming over, expression hard to read. He stands near me, looking intently at Sam, who says nothing, just tosses down the shotgun into the trunk resolutely. "We got work to do," Sam says in a hard, soulless voice. He shuts the trunk loudly, looks at Dean. "So we gonna stand around here all night or find Dad and the thing that did this?" Without waiting for an answer, he rounds the car and gets into the passenger side seat, leaving us to stand at the trunk.

Dean and I exchange a tense glance, his eyes flick over to the apartment building. He breathes out heavily, his face rigid and stony. "I got a really bad feeling about all this, Al..." he says, looks at me meaningfully, concerned. "Stick close by me from here on out, okay?"

I always do anyway, but I nod agreement slowly, looking at the building where smoke billows out ominously into the low, dark sky. Dad's disappearance, this sudden callback to the tragedy that has defined all of our lives... I have the same bad feeling Dean's talking about.

And more than that, I can't shake the growing dreadful feeling that life has just changed tonight for all of us, forever for the worst.


	3. Wendigo

**November 9th, 2004  
Stanford, California**

As I begin to float into the state of being awake, I can hear my brothers talking in quiet voices, almost whispers. I'm laying on my stomach on a motel bed, sprawled there with my face turned sideways on my arm and my mouth was hanging open—bad habit that I can't seem to break. I shut my fly trap (Dean's words, not mine) and keep my eyes closed, resisting the idea of waking up... I'm so _tired_ after the past few days. The tones in my brothers' voices intrigue me, and I immediately know they're talking about something important. I start to pay attention, even in my half-asleep state.

"Come on Sam." Dean's familiar voice is low and growly and bordering on pushy—from the slight dip in the bed, it feels like he's sitting somewhere near my feet. "I know it's been awhile since you've done this stuff, but trust me, there's no lead here. _Period_."

"Dean, you don't _know_ that!" Sam's voice is higher, rich and tenor. Filled with exasperation and emotion. He must be sitting on the bed next to this one, facing Dean.

" _Shh!_ " Dean shushes loudly, I guess maybe because he thinks I'm asleep. That's nice. He turns his attention back to Sam, who I hear give a huff. "Yeah I _do_ know that, and so do you, deep down. There's nothing here." A short silence, and Sam must be making a stubborn face at Dean. We've been here the past seven days looking for leads on Jessica's death, trying to find any clues or trails to follow… but we've come up with zero anything; a total dead end. Dean's right, and I think we knew it two days ago, but Dean was nice and gave Sam a couple more days of 'investigating' just to humor him. He just lost his girlfriend and he's grieving, so it's understandable that he's really wanting to find answers and get closure or revenge. But I guess Dean's lost patience and is ready to get a move on. Sure sounds like it.

"Okay then hotshot, so if we _did_ decide to stay here and dig more, where would we dig?" Dean asks sort of challengingly. "We've talked to everyone we could think of, we've been over the apartment building, the school, where Jess worked—all of it, with a friggin' microscope and we got nothing." Long, tense silence and Dean sounds a little more sympathetic, but not much. "The thing that killed her's gone and might be headed to where Dad is. It's time to haul ass to those coordinates he left for us."

Sam snorts. "Lemme get this straight… you wanna drop everything here and go to some backwater middle-of-nowhere dump?" Sam's voice is rising with disgusted disbelief. "You wanna hang everything on some coordinates that Dad left in his journal with absolutely no explanation?"

I can just imagine the face Dean is making. "...yes!" He replies, as if there could be no other answer to Sam's question, as if he thinks Sam is nuts for not seeing his perspective here.

"Huh," Sam comments, and his voice drips with cynicism. "Nothing's changed, has it, Dean? He says jump, you say how high, huh?"

Oh _Christ,_ here we go again. I wish I didn't have to hear this. My favorite thing in the world… Sam and Dean arguing about Dad. "I'm still alive, aren't I?" Dean asks sarcastically, slamming Sam's snide remark. "It's cuz I don't stop to ask a million stupid questions—I _trust_ Dad, Sam. The man knows what he's doing."

Sam is sounding pissier and pissier. "If he knows what he's _doing_ then why the hell is my girlfriend _dead_?"

There's a surprised pause, and Dean's voice softens. "He couldn't have known that was gonna happen, Sam. How could anyone?" I think Sam's taken aback by the caring tone in Dean's voice, because he's quiet for a minute.

"Because… maybe… maybe this thing, this monster or whatever it is has some weird hate-on for the women in our life," Sam finally says. "Maybe it's a pattern, these fiery deaths on the ceiling."

"What are you saying, Sam?" Dean asks cautiously, voicing my own thoughts, too.

"I mean, first Mom, then Jess?" Sam's voice lowers conspiratorially. "If this is a pattern of some kind, _she_ could be next."

She _who_? I realize he means _me_ when Dean gets defensive and a little scared sounding. "No. _Hell_ no. She's safe with me," he says forcefully, and I'm suddenly a little freaked out, too—I hadn't even noticed what Sam noticed, how this might be a pattern. Is he right? Is this thing gonna come after me next? I open my eyes, wide awake now. They don't notice. Dean's busy condemning Sam's opinion. "You're talking crazy stuff," he accuses uncomfortably.

Sam sounds levelheaded and not so sure about Dean's comment. "What if I'm not though? _None_ of us are safe, isn't that what Dad's crazy voicemail said?"

Dean expels a breath of air and I hear his hand his his leg. He talks with his hands a lot when he's exasperated or riled up. "Look. _Sam_. I know you're hurting. And I'm sorry. I am. But fact is, we gotta hit the road pronto. If you wanna find this thing that killed Jess and Mom, we find Dad. Dad's _close_ to finding this thing, man."

Sam glances at me, sees I'm awake but doesn't say anything about it. "He's said that before," he says, both bitter and sad about it.

"This time's different," Dean says, voice full of conviction. All I can see is his side, back, and a little of his profile. Another long pause. "So you in? I'm leaving today, with or without you. But I'd like it if you were with me."

Sam clenches his jaw, looks down between his knees. Nods slowly. His shoulders are slumped. "Yeah. I'm with you."

Relief softens Dean's shoulders. "It's gonna be okay, Sammy," he says, pats Sam on the knee encouragingly, awkwardly. Sam looks a little weirded out by it and Dean takes that as his cue and stands up, lightening the bed. "We're gonna catch this son of a bitch. It's only a matter of time." He yanks his t-shirt off over his head and throws it over his shoulder without looking. "But in the meantime, I'm gonna get a shower," he says a little gruffly. He glances back at me, seeing I'm up as I begin to roll over push myself up. _Ughhh_ my back muscles are killing me. "Morning, sunshine," Dean says, a little sarcastic, a little fond.

I point to my feet questioningly, realizing my shoes are gone… did he take them off for me again? Dean points to my bag over in the corner where I see my boots. I give him a slightly churlish look, complaining at him silently. He's always bitching at me for sleeping in shoes, but I mean, he does it too. "You're welcome," he says, then grabs his bag and reiterates where he's going as he heads that way. "Shower."

He shuts the bathroom door behind himself, leaving me and Sam in blaring silence. I'm sitting up now, legs over the side of the bed and I give him a slight upward nod with my chin, trying to say hi, good morning, how are you—all while being sensitive to how on edge he is right now. He's distracted and tense and gives me a tight little smile, but it looks more like a grimace. He's barely been sleeping or eating. Jess's funeral was November fourth, two days after she died. It was surreal seeing how many people she knew, how many family members came. Dean and I stood off awkwardly, out of place among all those normal, nice, respectable people. Sam cried a lot but tried not to. I hugged him that day for what was the second time in years.

I get up and go over to my duffel bag, sit beside it and tug my boots on, lace them up tightly, complaining in my mind about how Dean loosened the laces so much. Sam's just sitting there, hands clasped and hanging between his knees as he stares blankly ahead of himself. My stomach growls loudly in hunger and Sam glances at me. So- _rry_.

The past week has been weird. Dean and I are used to each other and know each other's habits and instincts by heart—we have an understanding that comes from years of hunting and living with each other—so having Sam around is kind of an adjustment, to say the least. He's the odd man out, and we all know it; still we're trying not to really acknowledge it. Dean's both excited to have Sam with us and a little disappointed I think, too. Sam's so withdrawn and angry and not exactly how I remember him. But I mean, four years changes people. I know it's changed me.

I guess I always expected Sam to leave the family business. He hated the life we lived growing up, he disagreed with what Dad wanted for him and us. He and Dad fought constantly and clashed on pretty much _everything_ the older and older Sam got… and the tighter Dad dug in, the more Sam fought the hold. It all culminated with that horrible night when Sam announced he was leaving and going to college. He'd tried so hard to be reasonable and grown up, he tried to explain it in positive words. He'd had this hopeful look on his face, begging us all, especially Dad, to understand and support him in the decision.

I remember Dean's expression of utter betrayed shock, I remember feeling like cold rivers ran through my veins and like I was losing my best friend. None of us had known it was coming. And Dad's face. I'll never forget how the unspeakable anger ran across his features that day. It got heated that night, and fast. Sam said all he wanted was a normal, functioning life, Dad accused Sam of being a coward who didn't want to face his responsibilities. Sam said life shouldn't be all fighting and surviving and revenge missions, Dad said Sam was deluding himself and living in a fantasy land. Sam said he wasn't the one who was was living in a fantasy land. _You'll never find the thing that killed Mom, you had your chance to save her and she died!_ Sam had shouted. _It's over, face it Dad! Stop trying to ruin my life with your crazy obsession! Mom's_ gone _and nothing can bring her back!_

I can't think of a time I've seen Dad angrier about that. He almost hit Sam. I still don't know why he didn't. Maybe because Dean pulled them apart—they were in each other's faces, red as lobsters. Dad told Sam if he was going to leave, to stay gone. _I'm fucking done with you, Sam. Done!_ The last thing Sam had heard Dad say to him. No wonder he wasn't really jumping up and down to go track Dad down. I'll give my father this much… the man has a real way with words. I wonder where he is but sort of feel doubtful that we're gonna find him. I know Dean's really gung ho to find him but me? I think I'd be okay if we only saw Dad a couple times a year. If that. I'm not trying to be a bitch… I'm just being honest. There's a lot of bad blood between us, to say the least.

My shoes are on now and I rake a hand through my duffel bag, trying to find my stash of snack food. My stomach is babbling in hungry complaint and I _know_ I had some goods in here, so where are they?! I find only one little plastic tube of mini powdered donuts. Dammit, Dean! When did he steal my M&Ms? And the beef jerky I had? _And_ the skittles and my trail mix and the snickers bar I was saving?! What a _twerp_. Good natured sigh… I'll get him back for this eventually. At least he left these donut things. I go back to the bed and start opening the donuts and offer one to Sam, who looks at it unenthusiastically.

"No, thanks." I give him _the look_ and hold the donut out further. _Take it, Sam._ He still won't. Just shakes his head, seeming feeble and really dejected. "Thanks, Alex, but I haven't really got an appetite, you know?"

I really hate it, how sad he is. How hurt he is. He keeps going between being really angry and singleminded to being depressed… and I think today is gonna be a depressed day. Does he still remember morse code? I don't know, but I take his hand and tap a message using morse. _Not your fault._

He looks up at me and he seems startled and touched. Our eyes are the same color. But his are so much sadder than mine, today. "It is though, isn't it?" He asks softly. "My fault." So he _does_ remember morse. I shake my head and squeeze his hand now not to communicate something with dots and dashes. Just to try and tell him _no. It's_ not _your fault._ I let go after a second and pop the donut I tried to give him into my mouth. I stand up and smack the rest, still in the plastic wrapper, against his chest, point a warning finger at him as I chew rudely. Eat them or else.

Sam smiles a little through his pain at the face I'm making and accepts the donuts. "How you and Dean live off food like this is beyond me," he comments, shaking his head kind of fondly, kind of hesitantly.

This week Sam's repeatedly expressed his horror over the fast food and gas station fare Dean and I survive on. They say you are what you eat… and if that's true, Dean would be a cheeseburger and beer and I'd be microwaved macaroni and cheese or a gas station hot dog. Sam would be a tofu something or lettuce-y thing. I'm picturing the three of us now as food items with legs and chuckling mentally. I wish I could tell Sam what I'm thinking about, but I can't. Instead I switch the TV on and the news drones in the background while I start some coffee for us and get myself focused. I do my daily pushups and wonder if Dad's really at those coordinates he left us. It's not the first weird thing he's had us do, and he _does_ do a lot of camping out or sleeping in his truck sometimes. Maybe those coordinates are where he's found a clue to finding the thing that killed Mom. We won't know until we get there. And knowing Dad's need-to-know-basis style, even then we might not know.

Pushups done, I get up and look around the room which we've lived in the past week. I do Dean a solid and pick up the dirty laundry he's strewn everywhere, put it into a garbage bag. Not to throw away—this is how we know what to wash. Clean clothes are in duffel bags, dirty go in a trash bag and we'll hit up a laundromat when we can. Sam makes a comment or two about how weird our trash bag system is as he gets his stuff ready to go and then pours some coffee for us. Dad raised us to be super neat and organized, almost militaristic at times. He would never stand for clothes being tossed helter skelter around a room, which is why my oldest brother relishes being able to do just that. Dean's a total slob at heart and so am I, more or less. Sam's a neat-freak like Dad. I notice how my twin still rolls his clothes up military style to be packed into his bag.

This coffee isn't half bad and I watch the news with mild interest. Dean comes out of the bathroom eventually, dressed and ready to go, his bag over his shoulder. His damp hair is sticking straight up like it does when he rubs it with a towel and forgets to smooth it back down. I point at him then mime smoothing my hair down to let him know. He quickly fixes the issue with one hand. "Catch," he says, throwing his dirty clothes at me— _hey! Gross, Dean_. I jump up and barely dodge being hit by the offending articles of clothing. I give him a glower. No way, bro. I'm not a laundry hamper.

Sam laughs softly. I can tell what he's thinking. _Same old Dean._

I grab the dirty laundry trash bag, cross to Dean and push it into his chest then let go, not amused. He's chuckling at me, because this is one of his favorite things. Doing things that he _knows_ annoy me… one of which is having sweaty old underwear and socks thrown at me. Dean puts his clothes into the bag and tosses it to Sam, who's just stood up. My twin catches it with an _oof_ and gives Dean a look like he wants to know _really?_

Dean just chuckles. "You girls ready to hit the road?" He asks. Obviously, he thinks he's hilarious. Sam looks unamused but Dean is enjoying himself. "Hope you still like road trips, Sammy," he says as he picks up a couple of our things. "It's like a fifteen hour drive out there."

"I still hate road trips, Dean," Sam says evenly, though his impatience for Dean's jocky humor is obvious.

"Ha _ha_!" Dean snorts and claps Sam on the shoulder soundly with one of those shit-eating grins on his face… he knows Sam hates to be in the car. He looks at me and winks. "Well don't worry, Al will give you shotgun, won't you, Al?"

My eyes widen and I give Dean a look. Dude, I _earned_ that seat. You _cannot_ be serious.

* * *

**The Next Day  
Bailey, Colorado**

Dean _was_ serious. And Sam's in my seat, riding shotgun. _Sigh_. I guess he can have it for awhile. More room for his ridiculously long legs, anyway.

My neck is stiff from leaning over a book and I roll my head then move my shoulders around, trying to relieve some tension there. Outside it's nearing dusk and I shift a little in the seat. I'm used to being in the car a lot but I don't exactly love it.

I'm in the back seat with Dad's journal balanced on a knee. I was flipping through and reading offhandedly for the past little while—it's been awhile since I've gotten my hands on this thing since Dad usually keeps it on lockdown and out of our hands. I was really shocked when he left it for us. This leather-bond book is sort of an oddity… it begins like a normal journal would—with neatly written pages of personal thoughts and feelings. But as the pages go on, they get crazy and serial-killer-y. Complete with sketches of monsters, weapons, sigils; newspaper articles paper-clipped in, photographs, scrawled notes in mismatched ink… it looks like the work of a madman. But it's one of the best hunter resources and one of the most intriguing things I can think of. I bend over it again, flipping to the very first page. Dad's strong, bold handwriting stares back up at me. I've read these entries before, but I re-read whenever I can, trying to find the answer to the mystery that hounds my life: Why can't I speak? No one knows. But until I was six months old, until the night of that fire, I had been able.

_**December 4, 1983** _

_Last night I was sitting in the kid's room, in the dark, and I heard these noises… Mike said it was the wind, and okay, maybe it was, but it sounded almost like whispering, like someone was whispering a name, under their breath, again and again… like something is out there in the dark, watching us… I stayed up all night, just watching them, protecting them. From what, I don't know. Am I protecting them? Am I hurting them? I haven't let them out of my sight since the fire. Dean still hardly talks. I try to make small talk, or ask him if he wants to throw the baseball around. Anything to make him feel like a normal kid again. He never budges from my side—or from his brother and sister. Every morning when I wake up, Dean is inside their crib, one arm wrapped around each of the twins. Like he's trying to protect them from whatever is out there in the night._

_Sammy cries a lot, wanting his mom. And Alex still doesn't make a sound. Sometimes her face scrunches up like she's crying, but no sounds come out. It scares the hell out of me and I don't know what to do. One twin can't stop crying, the other is just—silent. It breaks my heart to think that soon they won't remember Mary at all. I can't let her memory die._

I don't remember my mom at all. I've seen photos, a couple photos. And that's it. I don't know what she sounded like, how she walked, how her face moved and worked. I can't remember anything about her at all. Wish I could. I know Dad loved her a lot. And Dean remembers her, sometimes talks about her and seems to revere her. I wish I could remember. But… I can't.

_**December 11, 1983** _

_Sammy has finally started sleeping through the night, and now that Dean shares a bed with him and his sister, he's out like a light as well. I'm not sure about Alex… before the fire, she always wanted to be rocked to sleep and I loved that time. She'd lay her little head on my shoulder and I'd rub her back. She would make these sweet little sleepy sounds in my ear. Now, she doesn't sleep unless she's sandwiched between her brothers. I sometimes try rocking her to sleep and she cries silently, won't hold still. It breaks my heart. I keep hoping things will return to normal, but they don't._

That entry always gets me. Hurts me. _Sweet little sleepy sounds._ Those words have always grabbed right at my heart. I can literally feel the love and tenderness of a father from him when I read that. That's the only place where I know to find those things from John Winchester. Approval and affection are so few and far between from Dad. In fact, by the time I was old enough to read and write, he was all but emotionally dead to me. I sometimes wondered, at night in the safety of darkness where I could cry and not be reprimanded, why he didn't love me. I convinced myself he didn't, and sometimes I still don't know if he does or not. I mean, what exactly about me is lovable? I'm a mute freak and I've never measured up to his impossible standards and dammit I _have_ tried. I think, deep down, I know the truth. That I've been a burden and an annoyance, a damper on my Dad. I'm disabled, I know that. But I try so hard to be as good of a hunter and backup as Dean or Sam ever were. I spent so many years _killing_ myself to try and be what he wanted, but I gave up trying to please him when I was in the middle of my teen years. Bitterness overtook me… that's just what happens when you give and give and give and continually get rejected and shown no appreciation.

I love my dad. But I don't like him. He made it hard to like him and a lot of times when he was drunk, belligerent, and violent, I wanted to hate him. But I've never been able to hate him. It makes me miserable sometimes, after the shit he's put me and my brothers through. But I guess I believe, deep down, that he's a good man. I guess I hope that if he ever finds the thing that killed Mom, he'll be this dad I read about in the journal. The one that loved rocking baby me to sleep.

This next entry makes my stomach go sour. I know this was the turning point for Dad. The day that started a pattern that defined my childhood. Dean's childhood. Sam, I don't think, remembers this stuff.

_**February 8, 1984** _

_Today I don't know what happened. I was trying to piece together some things I'd found from local newspapers. Stuff about bizarre murders. I was thinking maybe they were somehow related to Mary's death, because the reports said the people had died in really strange ways—their insides had completely liquified. Well, I was trying to do all this and Sammy was fussing, Alex was getting into everything (she's toddling all over the place these days) and Dean was trying to get me to help him with this Lego thing he was building. He kept trying to get me to come over, and at one point he grabbed at my arm and asked Daddy please. I don't know what came over me, but all the anger and maybe some of the alcohol too, it just set me off. I snapped at him and shoved him away, harder than I should have, and he fell backwards into little Alex, who had been walking behind him. She hit her face hard on the edge of the coffee table. She made no sound, she never does, but she was crying, her eyebrow was gashed open and bleeding. I scooped her up and yelled at Dean about what he had done to his sister. Sammy started screaming real loud when I did that. And Dean shrank away from me._

_I'm left wondering what the hell this is doing to me. If I can do this at all. Sometimes I think I should just let it go and focus on the kids._ _But this is something I have to do. I have to make sure Mary's death is avenged, if it's the last thing I do. Nothing else matters as much as that._

I re-read that last line sadly. _Nothing else matters as much as that._ I still have a little scar underneath my eyebrow from that incident. I stare unseeingly at the page now, remembering all the times Dad got mad and pushed me around. Dean around. Sam, for some reason, was except. Dad's favorite.

"Hey space case!" Dean suddenly says, startling me. "Look alive."

Huh? Are we here already? I realize we've stopped driving and I peer out of the window. We've arrived to a little neighborhood of older, single-story houses. Dean and Sam are already getting out and I scramble to follow.

"This is a _waste_ of _time,_ Dean," Sam grumbles as he shuts his door.

"I'm telling you, it's not," Dean insists, shutting his too. "Something weird's going on around here."

"We're supposed to be _finding Dad_ ," Sam says strongly. He's annoyed, and he's been annoyed since the Ranger Station.

Dean's headed toward the house we parked in front of, giving Sam no choice to follow. I've already fallen into step with Dean—I follow his lead by default. "And this is part of how we do that," Dean says to Sam, who's trying to catch up to us.

"What, stopping to ask some girl about her missing hiker brother?" Sam asks, completely disgruntled and annoyed. "I still say you're cruising for a hookup."

Dean turns to Sam as we reach the door. "And _I_ still say _you're_ a moron." He grins and gives a typical douchey-sounding _heh heh_ as he knocks loudly on the door of this house.

When we rolled into town, the first thing we did was go to the ranger station to find the best way to get to Blackwater Ridge. Apparently the only way in is on foot and it's not exactly a slice-of-pie area to get to at all. Blackwater Ridge is apparently nothing but crazy terrain, grizzlies, and abandoned old mines.

The ranger there had asked if we were friends of "that crazy Haley girl who won't quit pestering me about her brother." Dean had said yes, yes we were, his spidey senses tingling, I guess. The ranger seemed annoyed, had said, "I told that girl, he ain't missing. So you go tell her too." Dean jumped on that real quick—he's always got his ears tuned for anything weird or out of the ordinary, so a potential missing person paired with the coordinates Dad gave us _does_ seem a little unlikely to be a coincidence. Dean managed to finagle this Haley girl's address out of the ranger, and here we are to see if maybe there's something weird going on at Blackwater. Sam, obviously, isn't happy about it. He's of the one track mind and is foaming at the mouth to find Dad, _now,_ and also the thing that killed Jess.

The door to the house swings open and a girl around my age is standing there. She's got pretty features, curly shoulder-length hair, and bright blue eyes, looks sort of tomboyish like me.

"You must be Haley Collins," Dean says, greeting her affably. "I'm Dean, this is Sam, that's Alex, we're, ah, we're rangers with the Park Service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. He wanted us to ask a few questions about your brother Tommy."

Haley hesitates, looking us over. "Lemme see some ID."

Dean whips out the shitty ID he had me put together in the back of the car earlier today. I laminated it crookedly and the edges aren't totally even but… Haley buys it. "Come on in," she says, and lets us in. Even compliments the Impala when she catches sight of it. Dean seems stoked. Maybe he is cruising for a hookup. Haley's house is small, old, but homey. I can smell something cooking and Haley leads us into the dining room, apologizing and saying she's just getting dinner on the table for Ben—who is her younger brother. He looks sixteen, maybe. He eyes us mistrustfully as we come in and Haley pats him on the back as she walks past. A silent _it's okay_. She must be the oldest sibling.

"So Ranger Wilkinson tells us you're making his life hard, calling nonstop to check on your brother," Dean says conversationally, casting glances around the dining room in mild interest. "You _do_ know your brother took out a permit and planned to stay gone until the twenty-fourth, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Haley says and sounds distracted. "Wilkinson told me." She's bustling into the kitchen and coming back out with a bowl of salad.

"So if Tommy's not due back for two more weeks, what makes you think something's wrong?" Sam asks carefully.

I'm lurking back, arms folded, staring at the pretty blue and white plates on display on Haley's hutch. The plates on the table are plain white ones. I've never understood why people do that… have dishes on display. If I had such pretty dishes I would use them. I'm used to eating off of wrappers and out of containers. It'd be nice to have dinner off of a pretty, shining glass plate.

"Because he checks in every day by cell," Haley is saying. "He emails, photos, stupid little videos—but we haven't heard anything in over three days now."

"Well, maybe he can't get cell reception," Sam reasons.

"No. He's got a satellite phone, too." Haley goes back into the kitchen.

"Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check in?" Dean asks, watching her the entire time.

"He _wouldn't_ do that," Ben says, speaking up for the first time. He's upset… his tone is a clear indication of that—he shoots Dean and then me a dark look. Haley comes back out, sets some spaghetti down on the table, indicates that Ben help himself. She seems motherly to Ben, but she can't be more than maybe six or seven years older than him.

"Our parents are gone," she says, explaining Ben's statement. "It's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other." Hmm. Sounds familiar. I catch Dean's gaze, see that he's thinking the same thing.

"Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Sam asks, getting in the zone. Haley says yeah and shows us some pictures on a laptop—nothing special, just some selfies and a few group pictures taken out in some woods. His name is Tommy and he's out camping with some friends up there at Blackwater. It looks from the pictures like they're all having a good time. There's a video, too, of Tommy saying hi. I don't see anything too out of the ordinary about the situation and I'm not paying much attention. I'm watching Ben, who seems really withdrawn. He's super quiet and doesn't seem to like having us in his house. Don't blame him, and I know he's worried about his brother.

"Well, we'll find your brother," Dean tells Haley after we saw the video of Tommy. "We're heading out to Blackwater Ridge first thing."

"Then maybe I'll see you there," Haley says, and I think the three of us must look surprised. I'm sort of impressed at how matter-of-fact she is, how determined. "Look, I can't sit around here anymore," she says evenly. "So I hired a guy. I'm heading out in the morning and I'm gonna find Tommy myself."

 _Wow._ Dedication. I glance at Dean, and I wonder if we're thinking of the same thing… seems awfully reminiscent of one of our own experiences. Missing brother, sister who dropped everything to go find him…. spring of 'ninety-five.

"Seems dangerous," Sam's saying, cutting off my thoughts. He sounds less than enthusiastic about Haley's mission.

She doesn't miss a beat and looks at Sam, resigned and maybe a little stubborn, too. "Doesn't matter. He's family. Nothing's gonna stop me from making sure he's okay."

Dean smiles a little, immediately liking Haley all the more. I can tell. "I think I know how you feel," he says, then sends me a little look that says he remembers the time I went after him when he disappeared, too.

* * *

A couple hours later, I bump roughly into a big biker looking guy as I work my way back across the bar. "Hey, _watch it_!" he complains loudly and I throw a hand out and give him a look like _he's_ the idiot. I'm hiding my other hand… cuz I've got his wallet in it. _Heh. Score._ I smile a little to myself—it's too easy, really—and slip through the bustling bar patrons back to Sam and Dean, who are at a table and leaned over Dad's journal.

"So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic. Local campers, mostly. But still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there," Sam's saying. I plunk the stolen wallet down onto the table with a smirk. "They were never found," Sam continues, then looks at the wallet, realizes what it is, and sours. I get a very pointed look from my twin. "Alex. Really?" He sounds _so_ disapproving, and now is looking at our brother. " _Dean_. You shouldn't let her do this crap." I feel a little stung. It's one of the things I'm good at. It's one of the things I'm proud of knowing how to do. And Sam is looking at me like I'm a horrible person because of it.

" _Let_?" Dean asks, easy going and grinning, making me feel a little better because I can hear how proud he is of me. "I'm the one who taught her." He claps me on the shoulder approvingly and nods at the guy I stole it from who's at the pool table, clueless. "You really think I'm gonna say no to Spike over there paying for our drinks tonight? Whaddya want? Anything on the menu, Sammy."

Sam gives Dean a peevish look. " _Water._ "

Dean rolls his eyes. "Oh my god, get over yourself," he says, then nods at Dad's journal. "So, any other disappearances around these parts?"

Sam pulls out a couple newspaper articles that were stashed in the journal. He's still a little upset about the stolen wallet thing but I mean, he remembers: You get by whatever way you can living this life we live. I wish he didn't have to be such an a-hole about it though. I forgot how pious he can be. But for now, he gets refocused. "Yeah actually, in nineteen eighty-two, eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack." Sam taps the newspaper lightly and Dean and I look at it briefly.

_**GRIZZLY BEAR ATTACKS!** _ _EIGHT HIKERS VANISH IN LOST CREEK AREA - HIKERS DISAPPEARANCE BAFFLE AUTHORITIES - Families continue search and rescue efforts in spite of disappointing prospects._

Huh. Okay. So, bears. No big deal, it's to be expected out here. Sam's pulling out his laptop. "And again in 'fifty-nine and again before that in 'thirty-six."

Oh. Maybe not. I'm squinting, doing the math in my head. That's every twenty-three years, right? Why that specific time span? That's one hell of a coincidence… or maybe it's _not_ a coincidence. "Every twenty-three years, just like clockwork," Sam says a second after I think that. He catches my thoughtful frown and for a second, he's grinning at me a little like he used to when he knew he was onto something.

He's pulling up something on his laptop then turning it it toward Dean and I, indicating that we watch, too. "Okay. The video we watched. I had Haley forward it to me. Check this out. Noticed it back at her place..." All I see is Tommy on the screen, then I see it as Sam pauses then clicks through the frames in slow motion. A shadow crosses the tent behind Tommy's head and I let my head zoom in. I'm suddenly _very_ interested. What was _that_?

"Do it again," Dean says, similarly intrigued, craning his neck forward too.

Sam repeats the frames. I see it again: the distinct shadow passes over the tent, fast. "That's three frames," Sam says. "A _fraction_ of a second. Whatever that thing is, it can move." _Daaaamn_ , no kidding! Super speed and appears every twenty-three years. I'm stumped and sit back in my seat, thinking.

"See?" Dean hits Sam in the shoulder. "Told you something weird was going on," he says. Yeah, I agree now too. But _what_?

"Yeah," Sam closes the laptop. "I got one more thing." He pulls one of the newspaper clippings out from the bottom of the stack and taps it with his index finger. "In fifty-nine one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive."

"There a name?" Dean asks.

Sam looks at him with a sly little smile on his face. "Shaw. He's a local. I already checked."

Dean looks surprised, and I am too. How…? "Already checked?" Dean repeats.

"It's called the internet, Dean," Sam says, voice colored with good-natured ribbing. "It has the yellow pages on it." Ah. That must be what Sam was doing on his laptop when we stopped at a fast food place for some grub.

"I know what the internet is, Sam," Dean says snidely, grumpy. "A shortcut on good old fashioned detective work."

Sam snorts. "You just wish you'd thought of it first!"

Dean rolls his eyes and makes a _pssh_ sound. "Yeah, yeah. What say we go ask Mr. Shaw about this 'bear' attack, huh?" He asks, and nudges me like he wants me to move so he can get out.

I look at him crazy and make a drinking sign. I want a beer! Dean cracks a grin and reconsiders leaving when he sees what I'm trying to get at. "Yeah. You're right—a couple cold ones can't hurt." He looks at Sam in amusement. "You still want just _water,_ Sam?"

My twin seems exasperated with us and impatient to move on. I poke him in the side, chancing some playfulness, trying to get him to live a little. Come on, just _one_ beer, Sam. He doesn't respond to what I did, just shifts away, grudging. I hide my hurt expression and pretend to look at the newspapers. I never do the right thing with Sam. Sometimes, the way he looks at me reminds me of the way Dad looks at me. Filled with disappointment and shame.

* * *

**An Hour Later**

" _There's something evil in those woods. It was some sort of a demon..."_

Mr. Shaw's words are haunting me as we drive back into town from our little late-night visit to the old man who had, as a small boy, survived one of these so-called grizzly attacks. At first the old man had dodged Dean and Sam's questions, gruffly insisting he'd been attacked by a grizzly and that's what had killed his parents, too. As my brothers pressed, he'd admitted that whatever killed his parents and almost killed him had moved too fast to see and it got inside his cabin without smashing a window or breaking a door. It _unlocked_ it. So… not a grizzly, unless Smoky the Bear has suddenly learned how to pick a lock. What _was_ it, then? That's what Sam and Dean are discussing right now in the front seat as I try and skim Dad's journal in the dark for ideas. Every few seconds we pass a street light and I hunt, hunt, hunt for what it might be. But it could be a lot of things. We need more clues.

"Could be some kind of vengeful spirit," Sam is saying. "Maybe a demon."

"Spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors," Dean reasons. "If they want inside, they just go through the walls."

"Okay, so it's probably something else, something corporeal," Sam says.

"Corporeal?" Dean snorts at the fancy word. "Excuse me, professor."

"Shut up," Sam mumbles as Dean pulls up to the motel we checked in to earlier. "So what do you think?"

Dean shrugs as he throws the gearshift into park. "The claws, the speed that it moves… could be a skinwalker, maybe a black dog. Whatever we're talking about, we're talking about a creature, and it's real, or in _dork-_ speak, corporeal. Which _means_ we can kill it." He's getting out and he walks to the back of the car to open the trunk. I shove the journal into my backpack and swing it on as I get out. I grab an empty army-green bag that was shoved underneath the passenger seat, knowing Dean's about to need it.

He's lifting up the little floorboard in the trunk that covers the arsenal below—he props it open with my shotgun and starts picking weapons out of the cache to take. "Hand that here," he says, making a _gimme_ motion with his hand. I hand the bag over and he starts packing for tomorrow. He picks up one of our handguns and hands it to me, grip first and I check the safety then put it in the waistband of my jeans. Sam leans in as Dean paws through the disorganized weapons we keep. His mood isn't much improved since the bar. "We _cannot_ let that Haley girl go out there, Dean."

"Oh yeah? What are we gonna tell her?" Dean pauses, checking the chamber of one of his favorite hand guns before looking at Sam challengingly. "That she can't go into the woods because of a big scary monster?"

Sam pauses, looks like he's wondering if he's the only sane one here. "Uh… yeah. Exactly."

Dean looks at Sam pointedly. "Her brother's missing, Sam. She's not gonna just sit this one out."

Uh… awkward. I try and look totally normal, but Sam glances at me, then narrows his eyes at Dean accusingly. "You trying to say something?"

Dean's face is calculating and cool. "No. It's just obvious this chick's not gonna sit _by_ and wait for her brother to just turn back up." An awkward, stilted silence passes. We all know Dean's being a little bitchy and passive aggressive, mentioning _without_ mentioning the time he disappeared on a hunt in the spring of 1995. He's trying to make Sam feel bad all over again and I look down. Don't drag me into this, guys.

I remember that time all too well, as it was one of the scariest times of my life. Dean up and disappeared without a word while Sam and I waited, hungry in a motel room. Sam called Dad, who was too busy with a hunt to bother with us. He stuck us on a bus and shipped us off to Bobby's. We were only twelve. After three weeks of no word from Dean or Dad, I took off, ran away, tried to track Dean down. I knew something was wrong, didn't believe what Dad said ("Your brother's on a hunt of his own, learning a lesson he needs to learn."). I didn't believe that. I managed to make it for nine days—I stole money and food, took buses from Sioux Falls back to where we'd been when Dean disappeared. Upstate New York. I tried to track Dean down and got busted by the cops. It took two more weeks for them to track Dad down to come get me, and Dad wasn't the one who came for me when all was said and done. Uncle Bobby was. I spent those two weeks in New York locked in juvenile detention after some teenage thug tried to put the beatdown on me when I was first in holding. I broke that asshole's nose, ripped his earring out of his ear, and may have made it impossible for him to have children. I still don't regret handing that fool's ass to him.

I was miserable and scared and freaking out in juvvy but at least no one messed with me. "Stay away from that freaky mute girl," everyone whispered when I passed by. I was glad when it was my Uncle's worried face waiting for me, the day I got released and not my Dad's angry one. We went back to Sioux Falls and Uncle Bobby sat me down and comforted me, told me I couldn't run off again, but he understood why I did. He said not to worry, Dean would be fine. I remember how he hugged me and patted me on the back and I wondered why Bobby wasn't a dad. He should have been. He seemed good as one. Sometimes, I pretended he was mine.

Dad came and got me and Sam out of the blue one night, drove us forever and ever, wouldn't tell us where we were going. He was so mad at me he could have spit. He went on and on about what a "fucking idiot kid" I was and how "you can't follow one damn thing I say, ever, Alexandra, can you? All you had to do was sit on your ass and wait, but you couldn't even do that. God _damn_!"

Sam hadn't defended me. I think he was too scared. Sometimes, he saw it… the Dad I know so much better than he did. I remember when we went to some farmhouse in the dead of night and Dean unexpectedly walked out of that house, my heart soared and hope returned. I had been so scared that he would never turn back up. I'd found my big brother again. My rock, hero, best friend. I fell out of the car and ran to him, Sam close on my heels. I think I hugged my oldest brother tight enough to break his ribs. Then I hauled back and punched him in the stomach, mad as hell that he'd been gone all that time. He'd laughed and grimaced and ruffled my hair, high-fived Sam and hugged him around the neck, said not to worry… he wasn't going anywhere ever again. Dad had been silent and baleful, looking at Dean as if in disgust. I still don't know why. He didn't even get out of the car to greet his son.

That was ten years ago.

Dean and Sam are staring each other down cooly, animosity rising. Sam doesn't want to go after Haley's missing brother, Dean does. "We go with her, we protect her, and we keep our eyes peeled for our fuzzy predator friend," Dean says evenly, challenging Sam to argue with him. "That's the plan, kay Sammy?" Dean picks up the duffel full of weapons and pulls it out of the trunk.

"What, finding Dad's not enough?" Sam slams the weapons box shut for him, then the trunk—both with more gusto than necessary. "Now we gotta babysit a couple more losers?" I feel struck. I feel, distinctly, that he's implying I'm someone to be babysat, too. Dean stares at Sam, who is insolent. " _What_?"

Dean looks like he's losing patience and maybe regretting bringing Sam along. "Nothing," he says darkly, then throws the duffel bag at Sam and walks off toward the motel, not looking back, maybe removing himself from the situation so he doesn't do something dumb. Sam stares after him and I don't move. I just look at Sam cautiously. He looks like he wants to punch something.

"God, Alex, how do you stand living with his self-righteous bullshit?" Sam asks testily. It hurts that Sam is letting his anger do this to him. To us. I trust and love Dean, depend on him, and know he makes the right choice nine times out of ten. I'm not happy with my twin right now and give him a look to let him know he's being a dick. Sam scoffs at me. "Yeah, that's right," he says sarcastically. "I forgot. You're too busy worshipping him to take two seconds and think for yourself." His sudden, sharp comment shocks me, hits me where it hurts, and it shows on my face. Sam looks unreadable and pissed and a little guilty and he shakes his head. "You know what, I'll see you guys in the morning."

He throws the weapons bag at me and I almost fall over because I wasn't expecting that. Sam's stalking off into the night. _Where the hell are you going?! Hey, asshole!_ I stare after him with a clenched jaw and wounded pride. Now I remember why I had initially thought this was a bad idea. _Jerk_.

Disheartened, hurt, not wanting to be either, I plod in the direction Dean went, the weapons bag heavy in my arms. I should be mad, right? All I feel is sad. Sam's torn up, wanting revenge just like Dad does. And Dad's spent twenty-some years looking for revenge and never finding it. What if this destroys Sam like it has Dad? I catch up to Dean as he's unlocking the motel room door. He notices that I'm alone. "Where's Sam?" I shrug my shoulders, shake my head, making a face that Dean reads immediately. "What, he take off or something?" He asks a little incredulously, and I nod wanly. Dean looks inconvenienced as hell. "Little _punk_ , man…" he mutters and starts like he's gonna go after Sam but I stop him with a hand against his shoulder, holding the weapon bag with one arm kind of perilously. _Not a good idea, Dean,_ I tell him with my eyes. Dean gives a very frustrated sigh and relents, wetting his lips and staring down the hallway a few more seconds. He takes the bag I'm struggling with for me, shoulders it. "Yeah, maybe it was too much to hope he'd grown up, huh?" He asks, distracted as he opens the door. We go inside the dump of a motel room as Dean continues to complain. "Same old self-centered Sam." He tosses the bag down and looks around the room unhappily. "Home sweet home."

I shrug my backpack off and sit on the bed and scribble in my notepad while Dean paces a little, his hand rubbing against his mouth in thought. I finish what I wrote and show it to him, a plaintive look on my face.

**He's upset about Jess. He's grieving. Go easy.**

"I _am_ going easy!" Dean protests. I give him a look. "Okay, I know he's going through it right now. I get that. But he acts like he knows everything, and he doesn't _get_ what we do." True enough. I look down. Dean's shaking his head. "I dunno, maybe he really _does_ belong in that precious normal life of his he loves so much, huh?"

Something in his tone of voice offsets a mild suspicion. I write a single word and underline it twice. **Jealous?**

Dean scoffs. " _Jealous_? No _way_." He's trying really hard. "Why would I be jealous of sitting in class all day and having to work some boring-ass job for money?" He shakes his finger at me, appearing to be a little smug. "We get to see the country, save people, be badasses. No annoying neighbors, no mowing the lawn, no mortgage... we got it easy. This is the life!"

' _We got it easy'?_ ' _This is the life'?_ I'm laughing, which just means a lot of funny breath sounds coming out of my mouth. He's delusional—this isn't the life. But we're stuck in it, more or less. Maybe that's why he's trying to make the best of it. Dean doesn't want to talk about it any more, I guess, cuz he bats away an invisible something. "Enough Dr. Phil stuff. We got weapons to get ready." He turns on the TV and switches through the channels as we sharpen our knives, load and clean the guns. He leaves it on a spanish soap opera and says something about how he knows I love this show so much. He's the bigger fan and we both know it, but I humor him. After we're locked and loaded, we fall asleep without Sam there. Like it always was before. But after a week of Sam being here with us, it feels kinda strange.

* * *

**The Next Day**

When we woke up this morning, Sam showed up sullenly and wouldn't tell us where he was all night. Just said "let's go already." It's early and we didn't pack any camping provisions. Dean insisted we wouldn't need anything. I might have packed a few things anyway, just in case.

We pull up into a gravel parking lot where the Lost Creek wilderness trails begin and civilization drops off. I see Haley and Ben over at a car with some guy I don't recognize. He's got a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, and even from the way he stands, I can tell he's got an attitude. As the Impala approaches, he eyes us dubiously.

Dean parks the car and gets out, Sam and I following. "You guys got room for a few more?"

"Wait, you want to come with us?" Haley asks. I'm slinging my backpack over my arms and I hand Sam the bag with weapons. He takes it silent, stone-faced.

"Who are these people?" The man with the gun asks as Dean approaches Haley. The man is maybe forty or so, with short sandy hair, a neat beard, and a grizzled, tough look about him. I guess this is the tracker Haley mentioned last night. Looks a little shifty to me.

"Apparently this is all the park service could muster up for the search and rescue, Roy," Haley says to the tracker, looking at us dubiously. She's got on hiking boots, an outdoorsy looking windbreaker and shorts plus a really serious looking hiking backpack. Ben has one of those on, too. Sam heads past everyone, eager to get on the move, I guess. I hang back beside Dean.

" _You're_ rangers?" Roy asks doubtfully, taking in our appearances and lack of gear.

"That's right," Dean answers without missing a beat. I glance at him sidelong. I think I look pretty convincing, anyway—I'm wearing work boots, a plaid flannel, and a cargo jacket with my predictable jeans—I have tan skin and a tomboy appearance. I look outdoorsy enough. I guess Dean doesn't really fit the bill of a ranger in his leather jacket and frat-boy good looks.

"And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?" Haley asks, as if reading my thoughts.

Dean looks down at himself, then deflects with sarcasm. "Well, sweetheart, I don't do shorts." He heads up to join Sam and I follow.

"What, you think this is _funny_ or something?" Roy asks as we pass him. He's not amused, in fact, he seems to openly dislike us right away. "It's dangerous back country out there. Her brother might be hurt."

Dean chuckles lowly, stopping to look at Roy with a disarming, cool smile. "Believe me, I know how dangerous it can be. We just wanna help them find their brother, that's all." Dean turns and starts off down the pathway that's ahead. Warnings are posted at the trailhead about continuing… stuff about rough terrain, dangerous elements, grizzlies. Yippee. I can't wait.

Dean leads the way and Roy, annoyed, hurriedly pushes ahead, taking the lead and giving Dean a look. Sam smacks Dean in the chest, mutters at him to "just be cool for once, Dean." The forest becomes thick, quickly, the trees blocking out the sunlight. It's dark and cool here, and I'm glad I wore my jacket. For awhile, we follow the trail, then Roy takes us off trail, saying he knows a faster way to the ridge. Before he does, he gives Dean a look, says it might get rough once we get off the main pathway. "Can the 'rangers' handle it?" He asks sarcastically. I push through between them, rolling my eyes. We're burning daylight and they want to measure and see whose junk is biggest.

Roy follows after me and pushes me aside, says something snide and throws the word "sweetie" in there to piss me off a little more. We continue through the thick underbrush for awhile. I think it becomes abundantly clear after Dean idiotically almost steps into a bear trap that we're not rangers, and Haley calls Dean on it as Roy marches on ahead.

"You didn't pack any provisions," she says, right behind Dean. "You guys are carrying a _duffel_ bag and puny little backpack. You're not rangers." Dean won't stop walking and Haley grabs his arm, making him stop and face her. "So who the hell are you?"

The rest of the group is still heading forward, but they've stopped, and so do I, a few steps ahead, watchful of my brother and Haley. Dean glances at me, then looks at Haley. "Okay look, Sam and Alex are my brother and sister, all right? We're looking for our father. He might be out here, we don't know. I just figured that you and me, we're in the same boat."

Haley decides to believe him, but isn't exactly thrilled. "Why didn't you just tell me that from the start?"

Dean's easy going as usual. "I'm telling you _now_. 'Sides, it's probably the most honest I've ever been with a woman. ... _Ever._ " He cracks a lopsided grin and jerks his thumb at me. "She doesn't count, sisters aren't women." Ah geez. "So we okay?" He asks her.

She's smiling a little at his joke and trying not to be charmed by him. She loses that one, nodding and deciding to let it slide. Dean can have that effect on women. "Yeah, okay," she says.

"And what do you mean I didn't pack provisions?" Dean asks, feigning being indignant. He pulls out _my_ oversized bag of M&Ms. I _knew_ it! He sticks his hand in, throws her a smile even as I make a swipe for it. He saw me coming and holds the bag out of my reach, chuckling. "They're mine now, princess!" He teases, and grins at me. "You can't expect to keep these around and not have me borrow a few. Steal some. Take the whole bag. Whatever you wanna call it."

I give him a _you're dead to me but I also still love you_ look and he just chortles, hikes onward, leaving me there to glare halfheartedly. Haley sends me a sympathetic smile. "Tommy does stuff like that to me all the time," she says, studying me. "Yeah, I can see it now. Dunno why I didn't notice before. You look just like him." No, I don't. But, okay. I try a thin smile and hike onward. Haley tries to catch up and walk beside me.

"So you guys are looking for your dad?" She asks, curious and I guess trying to be friendly. I like her, she seems nice enough, and nod yes. But I hope she won't ask more questions. She does, ventures onward, not knowing I literally can't reply. "So he went hiking out here too, or…?"

Well, here it comes. The big reveal I hate making. I point to my throat, shrug, make a _no can do_ sort of signal with my hands, brace myself for the inevitable pity party.

" _Oh_..." she says, clearly shocked, embarrassed, and then, yup, there it is. The _look_ I always get from everyone. The one where they feel sorry for me and bad for me. God, and I hate it so much, because it's just another reminder that I'm _not_ normal. "I wondered why you didn't say anything," Haley said, trying to apologize I guess. "I'm really sorry."

I brush it off and shake my head, try and act fine. But I hike up ahead and fall into step beside Dean and he notices my face. "What's wrong with you?" He asks and I try to tell him _nothing, shut up_ with the glance I give him. He offers me the M&M bag. "Melts in your mouth, not in your hand," he says playfully, trying to get me to crack a grin. I swipe at the bag and he grins, tricking me. "Too slow," he says. Punk! I punch him in the arm, not amused. " _Ah-ha-howww_ ," he chuckles in surprise, recoiling a little and pulling away from me. I smirk at him. Serves you right, always stealing my candy.

Up ahead, Sam glances back at us disapprovingly. Dean leans in a little and speaks so that only he and I can hear. "Should we tell him how constipated when he makes that face?" I dunno… I'm trying to get the bag of M&Ms again and Dean sidesteps my try. "Ah-ah!" He chides, grinning the whole time. "Nice try though." He's popping an M&M into his mouth and chewing with a huge smile on his face.

We hike on for awhile, the better portion of the day stopping a couple times for bathroom breaks and then for a lunch of granola bars and bananas. The granola bars were actually mine and I give Dean a _told you so_ look when I pull them out of my backpack to share. The sun goes away and it becomes overcast in the late afternoon, making the woods seem darker. We trudge on, everyone getting tired and cranky. Ben says like two words the whole time. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was like me, unable to speak at all. Finally, Roy stops us. We're deep into the woods, but it looks like everywhere else we've been. "This is it. Blackwater Ridge."

"What coordinates are we at?" Sam asks.

Roy pulls out a GPS device. "Thirty-five and minus one-eleven."

The coordinates Dad left for us. "You hear that?" Dean asks Sam.

"Yeah." Sam pauses. It's dead silent. "Not even crickets." He pauses again. "So where the hell is Dad?"

"I'm gonna go take a look around," Roy says, and Sam immediately protests.

"You shouldn't go off by yourself."

"That's _sweet._ Don't worry about me." Roy waves his gun meaningfully. It's cute, really, how people always think a gun is gonna save their asses. The tracker walks in between Sam and Dean, letting his shoulder hit Dean's. I notice. _Dick._

Dean tells everyone to stay together and we follow jackass Roy, explore the area, looking for Tommy's campsite or any sign of Dad. Roy keeps wandering off and pushing the boundaries of how far he can distance himself from the group. I notice he's gone the exact same second I hear him holler. "Haley! Over here!"

Sounds like he found something, and Haley takes off running toward the sound of his voice, over a slight ridge and then into a flat clearing. We're right behind her. "Oh my god…" Haley says. My sentiments exactly. Holy hell, something bad went down here.

The tents are torn open and bloody and all the supplies are scattered. Is that _human_ blood splattered onto the shredded, half-standing tents? Haley and Ben are distraught, frozen in place, but I'm moving forward, peering into the wreckage, looking for bodies (I see none) or any kind of sign of what did this. Fur, clawmarks… I don't see anything distinct. The tents were definitely clawed to shreds, but bears have claws, so that's not much of a clue. I eye a blood splatter. It's dry, days old I guess.

"Looks like a grizzly," Roy says somberly, taking off his heavy pack as Dean walks through the mess, his eyes scanning intently.

Haley takes off her backpack and walks through the campsite, getting panicked. "Tommy? Tommy!"

Sam drops his bag, rushes over and shushes her.

I'm poking at a blood-splattered tent flap, bending to sniff a little bit. Yeah, human blood. The scent makes me gag slightly. " _Tommy_!" Haley calls even louder.

" _Shh-hh-hh!"_ Sam grabs her by the arm, looks around carefully, alert.

"Why?" Haley asks, confused and dazed.

"Because something might still be out there," he says softly.

"Hey wonder twins!" Dean calls, and I turn, frowning. Where'd he go? He sounds far off all the sudden. I move toward his voice, see that he's about twenty feet out where the woods are thicker. I head that way, Sam at my side. I notice the disturbed underbrush and snapped twigs. Dean's crouched down where the drag marks disappear. Sam crouches beside him as I look up, looking at the trees, mystified. "The bodies were dragged from the campsite," Dean explains. "But here, the tracks just vanish. It's weird." They both stand up. "I'll tell you what, that's no skinwalker or black dog."

He turns and heads back to camp. I glance at Sam, point up to the trees. Did whatever dragged these bodies away maybe jump into a tree? It'd have to be pretty froggy to manage that, especially while dragging and holding onto human bodies.

"Huh, _maybe_ …" Sam says thoughtfully, following my gaze and catching my meaning. He seems disturbed and a little shaken up. "Stay close, Alex. It's dangerous out here." He indicates that I should walk ahead of him back to the campsite for better protection. Even though I'm annoyed with that, a little (I can handle myself, has he forgotten?), it's also kind of sweet. He does care, still. And I'm glad to have the reminder. I walk ahead of him to humor him.

Back at the campsite, Dean is consoling Haley, who is crouched down, holding a bloody, smashed cell phone. I see her like that—in tears over a missing brother—and my heart suddenly goes out to her. God, if I don't remember what that feels like. Ben is hanging back, trying to look strong and silent. It suddenly got a whole lot realer to me.

" _He-eeeelp!_ " Comes a sudden, strong call from somewhere deep in the woods. It sounds like a man, and Roy dashes off, Dean close behind—the rest of us right behind them as another shout echoes through the trees. "Help!" It sounds like a man. Is that Tommy or one of his friends? We race toward the persistent cries. "Help! Somebody!"

And then they cease. Roy stops short, looks around breathlessly. There's not a sound, and the woods are silent. Ominous. Where's the person who was yelling? I see nothing, no one.

"It seemed like it was coming from around here, didn't it?" Haley asks, sounding very scared. The woods are deadly silent and I suddenly wonder if this is some kind of trap. My pistol is out and my gaze is sharp, every nerve ending is ready for an attack.

Then Sam seems to realize it a second before the rest of us. "Everybody back to camp."

Oh _shit,_ he's right. We hightail it back… and all the backpacks are gone. Everyone took theirs off, except me—and mine has nothing truly useful in it, anyway, except maybe Dad's journal.

"Our _packs_!" Haley says, voice fraught with panic.

Roy is annoyed. "So much for my GPS and my satellite phone," he mutters.

Haley looks around with wide, freaked out eyes. "What the hell is going on?!"

"It's smart," Sam says, his voice low and grim as he glances out into the darkening woods. "It wants to cut us off so we can't call for help." A shiver runs up my spine. He's right. I'm wracking my brain for what kind of big-bad is out there. Is it watching us right now?

"You mean someone, some nutjob out there just stole all our gear," Roy says, peering into the woods sourly, gripping his rifle a little tighter and looking around for footprints or tracks.

Sam walks over to Dean, who's deep in thought a couple steps from me. "I need to speak with you. In private." Dean nods and I make to follow with them, but Sam holds out a hand sort of rudely, stopping me. "No. Not you. Just Dean." I look at him in blatant shock at his brusque tone. But… what did I do? What's with the third degree?

Dean rounds on Sam, his eyebrows raised sky high. " _Excuse you_?" He's crystal clear and firm about what he says next. "Anything you got to say to me you can say to your sister too."

Sam's jaw tightens and his eyes dart to me. " _Fine_." He stalks off into the woods a little ways off and we follow. I'm mystified. Why's he being like that again all the sudden?! Dean's wondering the same thing. I can tell.

"Lemme see Dad's journal," Sam demands, turning around abruptly.

"Please and thank you are the magic words," Dean says sarcastically as I turn slightly and he unzips the backpack, draws the journal out. Sam takes it and flips through. Huh. He must have an idea about what this thing is. I cross my arms and frown, but Sam takes no notice.

"All right, check that out." Sam shows us the page he's opened to. It says _WENDIGO_ and has a cave-man looking sketch of a tall figure with long, clawed hands.

Dean protests immediately, laughing it off. "Oh come on, wendigos are in the Minnesota woods or, or northern Michigan. I've never even heard of one this far west."

"Think about it, Dean, the claws that tore up the tents, the way it can mimic a human voice…"

 _Huh._ He has a point, actually and Dean sees that I think so. "Great." He pulls out his pistol. "Well then _this_ is useless. You got a flamethrower in that backpack of yours, Al?" _Ha ha._ I make a face. _Wish I did, Dean._

Sam smacks the journal into Dean's chest and heads past him, then stops for a second. "We gotta get these people to safety." It's a nice sentiment, but he sounds so pissy and he's directing all his anger at _us_ for some reason. Why?

I watch him go as Dean puts the journal back into my backpack and zips it back. I'm in a shitty mood again. "Don't let it get to ya, tiger. I'll talk to him later, okay?" He makes a _hurry it up_ sign with his hand, telling me to get my ass back to camp.

"All right, listen up, it's time to go," Sam is saying loudly as he strides into camp, us bringing up the rear. "Things have gotten… more complicated."

"Kid, don't worry." Roy smirks. "Whatever's out there, I think I can handle it."

Sam shoots him a short glance. "It's not me I'm worried about. If you shoot this thing, you're just gonna make it mad. We have to leave. _Now_."

Roy is getting unhappy, and fast. "One, you're talking nonsense. _Two_ , you're in no position to give anybody orders." He sounds downright confrontational and my adrenaline begins to pump.

" _Relax_." Dean stares hard at Roy, who is _not_ relaxing. I can sense a fight coming on.

"We never should have let you come out here in the first place, all right?" Sam says, facing Roy and being reasonable enough. "I'm trying to protect you."

" _You_ protect _me_?" Roy asks, offended and getting in Sam's face. I step forward, Dean's arm shoots out to stop me. "I was hunting these woods when your mommy was still kissing you good night!"

Sam doesn't blink, just leans in toward Roy. He's tall and looks down on the tracker, enjoying the advantage. "Yeah? It's a damn near _perfect_ hunter. It's smarter than you." Sam's almost smirking now. "And it's gonna hunt you down and eat you alive unless we get your stupid, sorry ass out of here."

Roy laughs in Sam's face, pushes his arm. "You know you're _crazy_ , right?" Roy's grinning like a fool, crowding Sam, who's stepping back.

" _Yeah_?!" Sam asks, looking and sounding like he's about to start something—and I don't like the look in Roy's eye, he won't quit edging in on Sam. I push Dean's arm away and dart forward, jam myself between the two men and shove Roy, _hard_ —startling everyone. I'm stronger than I look and know how to fight, which is why Roy looks so surprised when he flies back a few feet and almost loses his footing.

As he's recovering, he glares daggers at me. "You kidding me, little girl?" He booms, pissed that I got the best of him for a split second. He makes to move in on me and I'm up for the challenge. Bring it on, dickbag.

"Hey whoa whoa whoa!" Dean's suddenly in front of me, intervening, facing Roy. "Chill out." He looks back at Sam and me meaningfully, a little mad. " _Everyone_." His eyes come to mine. "Chill. Out."

Chastised, I get sullen. Roy's laughing now, trying to goad us. "That's great Sam, your disabled little sister fighting your battles for you, what a _man_!" Sam falls for the bait and tries to lunge at him and Dean stops my twin forcibly as Roy continues to cackle.

"Stop! Just stop!" Haley is saying, standing back, horrified at the scene in front of her. Ben cowers behind her, looking younger than his age of sixteen. Sam relents, Dean lets go of him. Roy is smirking at us, then looks at me, winks. And suddenly finds Dean in his face. He's got Roy by the collar and he's shoving him against the tree there.

"Don't let me catch you talking about my sister like that again, Roy," Dean says, the threat said in a nice, even tone that conceals how angry he really is.

"Or _what,_ macho man?" Roy asks, baiting Dean.

"Stop! Stop it!" Haley is freaking out, and pulling on Dean. He lets go of Roy, but he's obviously pissed as hell. "Everybody just _stop_. Look. Tommy might still be alive. And I'm not leaving here without him. So everyone just stop with the bullshit, okay?"

A long pause. Sam looks pissed, ready to go. But Dean gives in and lets go of Roy, steps back, warning still in his eyes. "It's getting late," he says, glancing at Roy darkly before he moves past him. "This thing is a good hunter in the day, but an unbelievable hunter at night. We'll never beat it, not in the dark. We need to settle in and protect ourselves."

"From _what_?" Roy asks, getting more and more disgusted with my family.

Dean cracks a facetious smile, and my best guess is that he's stabbing Roy in his mind. "Wendigo."

* * *

By the time it's dark, it's only six in the evening. November has these early sunsets and we're promised a very long, interesting night here, unsheltered and without any real supplies. We straightened up the campsite as best we could, found a few things that weren't ruined, then got some firewood pulled together… ate the rest of the granola bars I had thoughtlessly packed this morning. I'm glad I packed them now.

The temperature is dropping and the fire we built is crackling merrily. The air is crisp and thin, smells like late fall, early winter. If it weren't for the thought of a bloodthirsty monster out there, this might be nice. But… it's not nice. Bloodthirsty monster and all.

I'm crouched down, a stick in hand. Dean and I are tracing protective Anasazi symbols in the dirt around the campsite, putting a loose circle around us. Roy thinks we're nuts, but Haley and Ben are humoring us… maybe because they don't have another choice. Sam's sitting over beside a large tree stump, silent and mad about being here. Haley watches Dean offhandedly. "One more time, that's—"

"Anasazi symbols," Dean supplies. "For protection. The wendigo can't cross over them." Roy laughs, his gun over his shoulder. "Nobody likes a skeptic, Roy," Dean says loudly. I smirk in the darkness at my brother, who sounds like he's standing up and dusting his hands off. "You good over there, Al?"

I raise a thumbs up high over my head and finish tracing the shape into the tightly packed dirt with my other hand. That was the last one. Roy's sauntering over to me and then 'accidentally' puts the toe of his boot through one of the lines. I look up at him and give him a bitch face. " _Oops_ ," he says, grinning down at me. I re-draw the line with a sharp stroke of the stick I've used and then stand up, stare him down calmly. Does he think I'm intimidated or something? Men like him don't scare me. In fact, it should be the other way around. _He_ should be afraid of _me_. I don't like it when people try and bully me. I had enough of that shit growing up and I don't stand for it anymore. "Nice arts and crafts, sweetheart," he says, looking at the symbol patronizingly. "So _glad_ you're around to keep us safe with the kindergarten drawings."

I give him a wink, a smiling nod, and the finger, then let my expression drop, walk away from him with an eye roll. _Idiot._ Sam and Dean are in deep conversation off at the edge of camp. I don't intrude. I sit down across from Ben and Haley who are at the fire. I toss the stick I used to draw into the flames, then hold my hands out toward the fire to warm them.

"It's cold," Haley says, smiling tightly at me, being polite. I nod a little, kind of uncomfortable, then glance at my brothers, wondering what's happening over there. I guess maybe this is the talk Dean said he was gonna have with Sam. I look down at my hands and crack my knuckles out of restless boredom. I don't plan on sleeping tonight. No way. I look upward, elbows resting on my bent knees. I can see some stars through the dark spiky shapes made by tree branches and leaves and I smile a little. I feel a little more peaceful when I see stars. Always have.

"So Alex, you the youngest in your family?" Haley asks, trying to be nice and make me feel included. I tear my gaze away from the heavens. Oh god. This is the worst, when people try and have a conversation with me. It's nothing but work and doesn't always go so well and I'm fine to just sit here in silence—I wish people didn't feel obligated to try and include me. But I try, as always, to be polite, at least. I nod yes. Everyone actually usually thinks I'm younger than Sam by a few years, at least. It's because I'm smaller and a lot shorter than him and always have been. Plus, I have one of those baby faces. People often think I'm still in high school. "That's what I thought," Haley says. "You must be around Ben's age, right?"

I shake my head no, a little rueful, then flash all ten fingers twice, then a peace sign. Twenty-two. Haley looks slightly embarrassed. "Oh. Okay. I was only off by about six years." She chuckles forcibly then goes quiet, clears her throat, trying to think. It's hard to talk to someone who can only answer with a nod for yes, a shake for no. And why would anyone _want_ to? "So, do you… uh…" Haley trails off awkwardly, not sure what to ask me. I look away, catch sight of Ben who is shaking his head as he sits beside his sister. He seems to be feeling awkward about the conversation and I decide to stop imposing. They don't _need_ to talk to me, I wish they wouldn't if it makes them uncomfortable. I stand up and smile tightly then drift away from the fire, into the cooler darkness near the edge of the campsite. Haley protests halfheartedly, then lets me go without further words. I stand there and cross my arms, off in my silent world and watch my brothers again, who are out of earshot. Man, just look at them… talking so easily, communicating so readily. It's not _fair_. None of my life is fair.

Sometimes I have this sudden feeling of pain in my heart. Of loneliness. Of despair. Will it always be like this for me? I don't know. There's this gaping hole that I feel everywhere, in every part of me. I'm waiting for something, _longing_ for something that never arrives. And seeing Dean and Sam together makes me jealous and hopeless. Dean deserves a hunting partner like that, doesn't he? Maybe I _am_ as useless as Sam seems to think I am.

The silence is shattered without warning. "Help me!" Comes the same voice from earlier today, and everyone in camp stands up at the eerie cry, clusters toward the fire. "Please!" Dean's pulling his gun out, Sam's shining a flashlight around, I've got my hand reaching for my pistol.

"He's trying to draw us out," Dean says, keeping calm. "Just stay cool, stay put."

" _Inside_ the magic circle?" Roy asks. There's suddenly low growling in the dark nearby, and the trees shake as something blazing fast moves past—everyone jumps back, startled. Roy points his gun, trying to find a mark. "Okay… that's no grizzly," he murmurs, getting real interested.

Haley and Ben are hanging onto each other, scared—then something rushes past, really close, and Haley shrieks. I'm with her now, make a _shh_ sound, tell her _be cool_ with my hand. It rushes past again, and Roy fires into the rustling trees.

"I hit it!" He shouts, and runs off into the night to pursue. No way did he hit it, and I think me and my brothers all know that.

"Roy, no!" Dean shouts after him. " _Roy_!"

The tracker isn't listening and Dean turns back to us. "Don't move!" He jabs his pointer finger at me commandingly. "Stay with them!" And he's taking off. _Dammit, Dean_ —I watch as Sam runs off after him too. I have to hold myself back from pursuing. Their voices get further and further away and my chest hurts in anxiety. I don't like it when I can't see my brothers and there's something bad around.

"Oh my god oh my god _oh my god,_ " Ben says really fast, sounding like he's near a friggin' mental collapse. He's backing up, eyes wide in panic. "This isn't real, not real, not real," he mumbles, starting to hyperventilate. Maybe it's not my place but I turn around impulsively, charge over to him and then slap him in the face to snap him out of it, then hold his chin tightly, point at him sternly. _Get it together, man._ I let go.

Haley looks too surprised to do anything, Ben's gaping at me but silent now, not breaking down into hysterics. I'm so done with this wendigo's shit right about now and I pull my gun out of my waistband, cock the slide with a satisfying click, and double check the symbols on the ground while I keep an eye out. I can hear shouts off in the woods. _Be careful, guys._ I'm anxious. I don't like being separated from Dean or Sam, especially on a hunt. I grind my teeth as my eyes scan the dark shapes of the forest at night. Could be another trick, another lure to separate us. I strain my ears, trying to hear what's happening.

"Do you know how to use that thing?" Haley asks, indicating my gun as she's huddling near the fire with Ben. I guess she thinks the light will keep them safe. I give her a look that says _yes_ , I know how to use this thing. I peer off into the darkness, heart hammering. Guns won't really work on a wendigo. It'll slow them down, but it won't kill. But aside from setting the whole forest on fire, it's kinda the only line of defense I have right now.

After a few tense minutes, Sam and Dean return. Roy's disappeared. I shake my head in chagrin when they tell us that. The only good news is that wendigo usually keep their victims alive to feed off of slowly. So maybe that idiot _isn't_ as good as dead. Maybe.

* * *

Morning comes and as Dean's talking to Haley and Ben, I decide to try and approach Sam again. He's sitting against the tree stump, off from the camp and alone, looking somber and sad with Dad's closed journal resting on his slightly bent legs. I bet he's thinking of Jess. I'm willing to try again with Sam. Seeing how Dean and him made some kinda peace last night has inspired me to try, too.

Here goes nothing. I gather my courage and go up to him, sit beside him, chance a tight smile at him. He looks at me fleetingly then down, shaking his head. "Quit looking at me like that. Like you feel sorry for me." He sounds so sad.

I do the mature thing: make a dumb face at him. _Like me looking at you this way better?_ Then I smile at him again, but this time it's more genuine. He cracks a little grin at my stupidity. That raises my spirits immediately and I nudge his shoulder with mine. I remember when we used to be best buds. I think he does, too.

He looks a little sheepish. "Sorry about yesterday. And the day before that." He pauses, smiling ruefully. "And probably the day before that, too." I smile a little. He says nothing else about it, but he doesn't have to. It's okay. I think bygones should be bygones and I'll let this be exactly that—I know what kinds of things he's going through right now anyway, so he can have a pass about some of the things he says and does. Sam shakes his head, thinking deeply as he looks at me. "Man, it's crazy you're still doing this, you know?" His statement startles me. Why's it crazy? What _else_ would I do? Sam's continuing, looking off into the woods as he continues. "I thought for sure you'd break out of it after I did, at least try for something more normal, safer. This life is… it _sucks_. Different place every night, never know when you're gonna sleep or eat next…" he looks at me intently. "You happy doing this?"

The question catches me unaware. I don't _know._ I shrug, trying to just be easy going, trying to be whatever. But Sam's thoughtful frown deepens. "No. Really. Tell me. Are you happy doing this?"

I realize that I don't wanna answer, because I don't _know_. So I nod yes, because I feel yes more than I feel no. But I feel _both_ of those words pretty strongly, honestly. Sam doesn't look entirely convinced, but lets it go. For a minute, we sit there together. I yawn widely after a minute, feeling the fatigue setting in. I am really, _really_ wishing we had coffee right about now.

Sam's staring blankly ahead of himself. "You think Dad's sending us on a wild goose chase?" He asks, seeming to consider the possibility with growing apprehension.

I take out my notepad and flip to a clean page. **You know Dad…**

I put the dots on purpose, because I think it could go either way. I know Sam takes my meaning, but he errs to the side of quiet, bitter cynicism. "You know, I really don't know if I _do_." He sighs, visibly forcing himself to light up. Slapping his hands down onto his knees, he's about to stand up. "Tell you what I do know. I'm ready to gank this wendigo. You in?"

Hell yeah I am.

* * *

Wendigo are one of the saddest monsters I know of. They're hundreds of years old and each of them was once a man. Sometimes an Indian, or other times a frontiersman or a miner or hunter. The sad part, to me, is they became what they are because they wanted to survive, to live… a basic human notion we all have.

So, during some harsh winter this guy finds himself starving, cut off from supplies or help and he becomes a cannibal to survive, eating other members of his tribe or camp. They eat enough humans over the years, they become less than human. They become a wendigo. Cultures all over the world believe that eating human flesh gives a person certain abilities. Speed, strength, immortality… and wendigo have all of those. They hibernate for long periods of time, but when they're awake they keep their victims alive for awhile, which is why as we set out to try and track Roy and find Tommy, I am sort of hopeful we might find both. Wendigo keep their victims in dark places. A cave… or an old mine shaft, maybe. I remember seeing how there were abandoned mines all over Blackwater Ridge.

Dean made a really ghetto molotov cocktail with a beer can and a rag and he's carrying it as we start to pick up Roy's trail. It's grisly. There are claw marks and blood every few trees and we follow, cautious and slow, listening for any sound of the wendigo. It could be behind any tree or up _in_ any tree. We move deeper and deeper into the wilderness, following the trail. Sam stops suddenly as we come to a group of trees that's slashed up and bloodied in what looks almost a precise, calculated way. "You know, I was thinking... those claw prints, so clear and distinct. They were almost _too easy_ to follow."

Dean looks at him sidelong. "Hmm."

A sudden low growling comes from behind us and all of us whip around, trying to catch sight of the wendigo. There's nothing, anywhere–only some bushes shaking, then a tree rustling. Backing up slowly, I really hope Dean can aim that molotov good, or we're all dead. I hear a weird dripping sound and look at Haley, who's right beside me. _Drip drip_. Blood droplets are falling onto her shoulder. The two of us look up at the same time and then are leaping out of the way as Roy's corpse plummets to where we'd been standing. Haley's fallen over, I'm in a shaky crouch. What the hell is happening?

I'm already standing and Dean is demanding if I'm okay, Ben's helping Haley up, Sam's crouched over Roy then turning to us, grim. "His neck's broke." The wendigo is growling loudly and very quickly, we're all realizing this is _bad_.

Dean pushes on everyone as the growls become louder and louder and the trees shake and quiver. I still can't see it, not even once. "Okay, run, run, run, run, go, go, go!" Dean thunders.

Everybody takes off in the direction that we came, running for our lives through the confusing, jumbled terrain. The ground is uneven, full of roots and stones and holes and when Ben suddenly falls, Sam and I both spot him at the same time and converge on him, haul him to his feet and pull him onward. My heart is racing and I can her the wendigo's growls echoing through the woods. We run, not even sure where Dean and Haley are—I can't see them anymore. And then we hear a shrill scream and run towards it finding nothing. "Haley!" Ben screams, and there's no reply.

Sam spots something and picks up Dean's molotov cocktail. It's broken and discarded. Oh no. "Dean!" He shouts even as I turn in a circle, trying to lay eyes on my oldest brother. I look at Sam desperately. Where is he? Did the wendigo get them?!

"Where are they? What happened?!" Ben is near tears again and I don't have it in me to slap him again. I'm freaking out, too.

"Listen, look—we'll find them Ben." He takes in my expression. "You okay, Alex? Hey. We'll _find_ them."

" _How_?" Ben asks, sitting down and starting to cry as he clearly decides to give up and start grieving. "It took my brother and sister, what am I gonna do- _hoo-hoooo_?"

Sam crouches down in front of him and consoles him. "Hey. _Hey_. We need to keep our heads, all right? They're still alive. Remember what we told you about how these things keep their food alive? Now get up. We gotta find them before it _is_ too late." Sam's right, and I take in a deep, steadying breath. If I can keep my head, everything will be okay.

He stands up, expecting Ben to do the same, but he doesn't. Not yet. I look at him, offer my hand, making myself hold it together. _Get up._ I make the come here motion with my hand and he hesitates. "You gonna hit me again?" Ben asks.

"Wait, what?" Sam asks, frowning a little.

I hide a sort of sheepish smile. Ben shakes his head, grabs my hand, stands up. "Nothing."

Sam shoots me a funny little look and I shrug just barely. Sue me. He leads the way through the now-silent woods and we look for any kind of trail. The wendigo didn't leave a false one for us this time, and there's no sign of where it went. I start to get anxious. My tracking skills suck and the wendigo probably used the trees, not the ground… therefore leaving no trail at all.

"But if it keeps its victims alive, why would it kill Roy?" Ben asks abruptly.

"Honestly?" Sam's looking around intently. "I think because Roy shot at it, pissed it off."

Ben wanders off a little, bends down, suddenly gives an excited sounding shout. "They went this way!" He holds up an M&M. _Son of a bitch_. I guess I can't be too mad at Dean for swiping my stash. I'm grinning, so relieved.

Sam laughs. "It's better than breadcrumbs," he says, grinning. I swipe the morsel from him, pop it in my mouth. "Ew, Alex," he says, face wrinkling a little. I shrug, make a face, and we start following the trail.

Dean dropped M&Ms every few feet and we're able to follow the trail pretty easily. It ends at an old mine entrance maybe a quarter of a mile west. _WARNING! DANGER! DO NOT ENTER EXTREMELY TOXIC MATERIAL._ Sam whispers he'd like his flashlight right about now and then digs it out of my backpack. And then without further preparation, we slip into the inky, unknown darkness inside, trying to find our family members.

Sam shines the flashlight ahead of us as we creep inwards and our eyes adjust. It's an old mine all right… several tunnels diverge from where we entered. We go straight down a tunnel where the old rusted railing stretches out ahead into the darkness beyond. I definitely do not like this. The floor is wooden in parts and creaked loudly. The wendigo could be anywhere beyond where the flashlight beam hits, waiting for us, watching.

As if on cue, we hear that low, vicious growling and Sam shuts off the light—we shrink back against the tunnel wall and we can see, silhouetted by the outside light that dimly shines in from the other end of the tunnel, how the eerie and nonhuman form of the wendigo stalks our way slowly. Ben shifts, maybe about to cry out, and Sam covers Ben's mouth before he can scream. The wendigo turns and takes a different tunnel at the crossing we'd passed over a few seconds ago and we wait, then keep going. I turn to look back, afraid of being followed, then hear a sudden loud creaking, breaking noise. Two steps ahead of me, Sam and Ben fall through the rotted floorboards ahead of me and I jump back on instinct, hug the wall, shocked, then dropping to the ground and crawling forward, trying to peer down into the dark hole. Are they okay? Where did they fall to?

I hear groaning and I carefully inch closer, but I can barely see. Sam has the flashlight, and I'm not in close to total darkness. "Hey, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay," I hear Sam saying faintly, and relief floods me. I hear him moving around. "Alex! Alex?!" He's calling for me and I tap a little bit on the ground, careful not to be too loud. Sam then he runs over and I can see him standing below me, but he's way out of reach, at least twelve feet down in some lower level. "Stay up there!" He says intensely. "Get outside where you'll be safe! I found Dean and Haley, we'll be out soon!"

But—I freeze because I hear growing again somewhere close. I shove backwards and push myself up to stand and run, half-blind, back the way I came, away from the growling. I fly through the darkness without knowing where I am or if I'm about to hit a wall—and then suddenly I run into something and take a nosedive. I hit the side of my face on something rough and rocky, scrub my palm on the ground, knock my shoulder hard on the tunnel wall I think, tear my jeans at the knee and feel a sharp shooting pain there when I bite dirt. Son of a _bitch_ that was noisy as hell and I go stock still, listening, clenching my teeth against the pain I'm suddenly in. Did the wendigo hear me? I fumble for my lighter and flick it open, light it, trying to see what I ran in to. I can faintly see a pile of junk is heaped against the tunnel wall and I seem to have run into an oversized pink suitcase, ripped half open. A hairdryer and makeup items have come out and I squint. Who brings this kind of stuff camping? And then I see it. A can of hairspray. I cannot _believe_ my luck and I grab it as my heart leaps. I'm clutching it to myself like it's my lifeline. Maybe because it _is_. I hear growling and slow footsteps again and stand up, shut my lighter, take off at a run.

I hear someone yelling in another tunnel. Is that... _Dean_? "Hey, you want some white meat, bitch!? I'm right here!" What the hell is he doing? I hear a loud shot, but it wasn't a gunshot. It sounded like a firework or a flare. I hurry toward all of it, hugging the edge of the tunnels where the floorboards aren't as weak, feeling my way along in the indistinct darkness better like this. I limp a little because my knee is screaming in protest, but I ignore it, trying to double time it toward the sounds of shouts and growling.

I round a corner and find another long tunnel. I can barely see… but I can see enough. At the dead end of the tunnel, not even twenty feet from me, Sam's got three people behind him and he's bracing himself. The wendigo is slouching toward them slowly, maybe enjoying the power play. I don't know, I don't care. _Sayonara, pal._ I sneak closer, heart like a hummingbird as I poise myself, lighter in one hand, hairspray in the other. A little closer, a little closer… my steps are silent like Dad taught us all those years ago. I get close enough to take him down and don't hesitate. At the same time, I light my zippo and depress the hairspray, then cross the flame to the spray. The makeshift flamethrower lights up the small space, the flames scorch the wendigo, catching it on fire like a dry leaf. It bellows out a scream and whirls while I stand there and hold steady, dousing it in flames even though my face is burning from the heat—but I keep the hairspray going, gritting my teeth, making sure that I catch it on fire good. The monster's tall form starts to waver as the entire body is engulfed and it wobbles toward me—and I'm suddenly knocked sideways, courtesy of Dean, who saves me from getting crushed by the flaming wendigo. Sam and Haley and Ben and some other guy—Tommy?—are all staring at the smoldering wendigo corpse, then looking at me with gaping mouths. It's over. We're all safe. I'm shaking now, my injuries all pounding, but the pain means I'm alive and I grin. Dean helps me up. He's bloodied, beat up, but alive. I hug him, then hit him in the back of the head. "Ow! What's that for?" He asked, surprised.

_For getting yourself caught by a wendigo, moron._

* * *

Forever later we're all sore, patched up, and tired as we watch Haley and Ben get into the ambulance with their brother. Haley waves to us as the door shuts behind them. Tommy's injuries aren't that bad, but they're taking him to the ER for better treatment. I'm not sure what time it is, but it's the middle of the night or maybe super early in the morning and I'm just glad to be back in the land of the living again. We're leaned up against the Impala and exhausted is putting it mildly. What a couple days this has been.

" _Man_ I hate camping," Dean says all the sudden.

"Me too," Sam says, smiling a little at the irony of it.

I poke morse code into Dean's arm, knowing Dean will know I'm being sarcastic. **Well I love it.**

Dean chuckles, tells Sam: "Alex says it's her favorite." My twin chuckles too. The ambulance gives a _whoop whoop_ then drives off, its the red-and-blue lights fading away into the darkness.

"So. Dad wasn't there," Sam said, soft and thoughtful as the night air is once again quiet and peaceful, filled with a chorus of crickets. "Why would he send us here, Dean?"

Dean shrugs. "Like I told you last night. He knew there was a job to do. People to save."

Sam's quiet for a long moment. "So now what?"

"We'll find him." Dean grips him on the shoulder, gives him a little smile. "You know we will."

Sam nods, somber. "Yeah, I know. But in the meantime?" A surprising, playful little smile crosses his face. "I'm driving."

That sounds like a challenge to me, and I look at Dean, expecting him to say no—matter of fact, _hell_ no. And then wordlessly, Dean tosses Sam the keys. Sam catches them deftly and I throw my arms wide, give Dean a _what's the big idea_ look. He never lets _me_ drive!

"Hey, you never ask!" He says, chuckling, and throws an arm around me, scrubs the top of my head with his knuckles. _Ouuuuch!_ I poke him in the side, hard and repeatedly, and he yelps.

"All right you two," Sam says, grinning as he opens the door of the Impala.

We hit the open road, and a sense of accomplishment fills me. We saved people, and seeing Hayley with her brothers safe and sound with her was a good feeling. The best. Yes to Sam's earlier question. I _am_ happy living this life, overall. It's not easy or fun all the time, and I definitely am a lot worse for the wear because of it… I don't always _feel_ happy. But it matters, this life I live, and sometimes, like today, I manage to be the one who saves everyone's asses.

Toto comes on the radio and Dean cranks it up and starts singing along to annoy us—he's in a good mood like I am, too. " _I bless the rains down in Africaaaaaa! Gonna take some time to do the things we never haaaaad!_ "

I clap my hands over my ears even as Sam protests in good-nature at Dean's off key, sad attempt to belt the song out. "Oh come on man, you're ruining it!" He says through a laugh.

Dean stops for just a second to smirk at him. "What, _jealous_ , Sam?"

" _So_ jealous, Dean," Sam says, laying on the obvious sarcasm. Dean sings even louder to spite him.

I'll never get a good nights sleep with these two jokesters around, but I smile a little at the thought. I sit back and slide to sit behind Dean, then look up into the night sky through the window. A star winks and I make a wish. A wish that Dean would _stop butchering my favorite songs_ _oh my GOD_! I smack him in the head again as he tries to hit a high note and his voice cracks disturbingly. Sam's laughing, Dean's whining about _ow my head_ and I'm grinning in the darkness. I feel okay right now. I think I'm happy. I'm alive, my brothers are alive, and I can't complain about that.

The Impala speeds down the road, its grumbling engines soothing and familiar, and despite Sam and Dean's noise, I fall into a deep night of restful sleep.


	4. Dead in the Water

**November 13, 2004  
Middle of Nowhere Interstate-Side Diner**

Let me tell you the story of this morning: I was very rudely shaken awake at the asscrack of dawn by Dean and then unceremoniously dragged out into the cold, frostbitten morning—the last place I wanted to be. "Rise and shine, princess!" He goaded me, obviously loving seeing my squinty sleepy looks of protest and the _I'll kill you_ grimaces. I shoved him grumpily and he just laughed like the jerk he is.

So, this is where I find myself right now: Half-asleep and not so happy to be conscious. I'd rather still be sleeping. I think I got like three or four hours, tops… _blehhhhhh._ I slouch on a stool at the diner counter between my two brothers and hug my hands around a hot mug of black coffee, trying to find the willpower to stay awake and not commit murder. Everything is annoying me right now. I'm… just not a morning person at all so that doesn't help either. Around us the ambiance of the diner is cheerful and bright—people are talking and laughing, I smell bacon and syrup and waffles or pancakes maybe. Silverware clinks against plates, upbeat music plays in the background on the radio, waitresses zip back and forth with smiles and what can only be described as pep. It's too early for pep. In fact, can we just outlaw pep, please? I find it suspicious and weird.

"Eat up, sleepyhead," Dean says, elbowing me and forcing me to jostle slightly into more wakefulness. I shoot him a deadly side eye. _You suck_. I pick up a triangle of toast and munch it absently, watch as crumbs roll down into my sleeve. They tickle my skin. _Urgh._ I shake my sleeve down and out a little to loosen the crumbs. My rumpled t-shirt and flannel button-up are hidden underneath of one of Dean's old rugged jackets—it's way too big on me and probably makes me look like a walking tent, but it's warm and familiar. I've never been one to give a fuck about fashion or how I look, really, so the oversized nature of the jacket doesn't bug me. I actually honestly _like_ how the sleeves are too long on me and leave just half of my fingers out. Dean grumbles good naturedly over breakfast about how I 'jacked his wardrobe' but we both know he hasn't even worn this jacket in like two years. That's how long I've been, uh, _borrowing_ it.

Beside me Sam's pretty quiet, only saying a few necessary words here and there. He's clearly a little testy for whatever reason. Maybe because it's so damn early? Who knows. But I can see it in the way he'd holding himself, the way he stabs his fork down into his yuppie egg-white omelet thing. He told us about how the egg yolks are high in heart-dangerous fats or something and then made a bitch-face when Dean ordered scrambled eggs with extra egg yolks just to spite him.

Sam's like me in the mornings—quiet, a little of the sulky side, taking awhile to get going. I can get _up_ whenever I'm woken, that's not a problem—being happy about it is the issue. Actually, all three of us are like that. We know how to wake up when told to do so even if we don't want to. Dad always insisted we got up at six or earlier no matter the day of the week. He kept us on regimented schedules (or at least _tried_ to). But Dean let us stay up all night sometimes, sleep in forever when Dad was away. That was the best. Anyway… I glance sidelong at my twin who's staring death daggers into far distance in front of himself unseeingly, chewing his food malevolently. I wonder what has Sam pissed off _now_. Seems like more than a case of the I-hate-mornings to me.

Last I remember Sam was in a good mood driving the Impala last night as Dean sang along badly to an old Toto song. But I mean, there's a lot on his mind and I know that. He's been sort of all over the place the past week, but mostly angry, sullen, grieving, cagey. I get it. His girlfriend _died_ , burned to death as he watched. He wants revenge. He wants to find Dad and get on with the slashing and hacking of whatever monster did that to Jess. To Mom.

However, after a whole lifetime of chasing this apparition, I dunno. I feel like it's a wasted effort, a pipe dream, an excuse Dad uses to drag us through this life. Still, here I am. Not walking away… along for the ride as usual.

I eat my breakfast slowly, my fatigue making me sluggish. On one side of me Dean's reading a newspaper, pen in hand, no doubt hunting for another job as usual. On my other side, Sam's glancing Dean's way in clear irritation for one reason or another but saying nothing. I think he's pissed at Dean specifically but I'm not totally sure why. All I know's that my twin has _always_ been like that. He bottles things up that upset him. He stores them away but he doesn't know how to fully compartmentalize… so, inevitably, his anger explodes out of him once it's eaten away at him for awhile. I'm similar, honestly, but better about letting my anger out before it festers. I like to destroy property or kick things… or get angry-drunk and do the first two things _while_ angry drunk. It's not the prettiest picture. But, thankfully, I've gotten better at compartmentalizing and regulating myself over the years. I'm a lot less angry than I used to be as a teen and stuff. I think a lot of it is that I've come to accept my lot in life. I used to really be desperate for a way out of being mute and a way out of being stuck hunting, but these days… I just accept it. It's not the worst—I'm alive, I help people… and I have a pretty awesome brother who makes it bearable. I glance at Dean fondly and then remember I'm mad at him for waking me up so rudely.

Sam finishes his breakfast and throws his napkin down onto his plate almost petulantly, leaves the bar kind of rudely and heads for the bathroom. I pause, coffee cup in front of my lips as I watch him practically stomp off. Jeez, _really_ —what crawled up his ass and died? I look to Dean for explanation and he shrugs it off, gives an eye roll, mutters something about "drama queen" and continues working on scouring the paper he's got. I sip my coffee until it's not scalding, then down it like it's a shot of whiskey.

Dean glances up from his work at the way I gulp the tepid coffee down. "Easy tiger," he says, a smirk on his face. "What, you _tired_ or somethin'?" He feigns concern and confusion and I playfully give him the finger and a wan smile. He chuckles, flipping to the next page of the newspaper casually. We trawl the obituaries constantly like he's doing now. Dour, yeah, but it pretty often helps lead us to cases. I watch from the corner of my eye as Dean circles one with a black pen several times over. I lazily read upside down.

_CARLTON, SOPHIE_ _\- The Carlton family is sad to announce the death of their beloved 18-year-old daughter in a tragic swimming accident…_

A blonde waitress leans over the counter suddenly, distracting me from reading more. "Can I get you anything else?" She asks, all eyes on Dean.

I recognize that coy, flirty tone she uses and see how she's leaning, pushing her boobs out for show. I sit back and roll my eyes before I can help it. Oh _puh-lease_. Why are all these girls always into Dean? He's not even that cute. Then again, I guess I have sister-vision. Plus I know how bad his body odor can get, how dumb and immature he can be, and how he's a closet geek. Dean looks up and grins around the pen he's chewing on and I recognize that stupid grin. The thing about my brother is he imagines himself a ladies man. I imagine him as an _idiot_.

I feel Sam brushing up against my arm as he retakes his seat again. "Just the check, please," he says, cutting off any opportunity for Dean to drop a bad pick up line or say something stupid and flirty. The waitress looks mildly disappointed at Sam's curt reply but nods, forces a smile. "Okay."

I approve and shoot Sam a little appreciative glance. The waitress walks away. Dean drops his head and looks at Sam in mild annoyance. "You know, Sam, we _are_ allowed to have fun once in a while." Dean points meaningfully to the waitress walking away. She's wearing tight short shorts. "… _That's_ fun."

Geez Dean. I wonder if he really _did_ forget about Jessica so soon… seems sort of in bad taste to say that. Sam is also giving our brother a look, but Dean's unaware and sliding the newspaper down between us, indicating that we look at it.

"Here, take a look at this, I think I got one. Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin. Last week Sophie Carlton, eighteen. Walks into the lake, doesn't walk out. Authorities dragged the water; nothing. Sophie Carlton's the third Lake Manitoc drowning this year. None of the other bodies were found either. They had a funeral two days ago."

"A funeral?" Sam asks.

"Yeah, it's weird, they buried an empty coffin," Dean said. "For, eh," he waves his hand flippantly, "closure or whatever."

Something about that seems to trigger Sam. "Closure? _What_ closure? People don't just disappear, Dean," he says, and his tone is decidedly aggressive even though he's holding back. "Other people just stop looking for them."

I realize how in-the-middle I am at that moment, both of them leaned forward over the counter to look at each other as I sit in my stool silently. I sense a fight brewing. Dean's giving Sam a challenging look. "Something you wanna say to me?" He asks, never one to beat around the bush.

Sam's face is hard. "The trail for Dad," he says. Exasperation colors his features. "It's getting colder every day and we're just… looking for _hunts_?"

Dean obviously dislikes being questioned. With me, he doesn't get questioned much. He's brusque to Sam. "Yeah, and?"

Sam's eyebrows shoot up. "What do you mean, _'yeah and'?_ " He asks, and the rising tension between them is making my teeth grind. "Why the hell aren't we doing something to find Dad?"

"You know what?" Dean asks, getting defensive and domineering. "I'm sick of this attitude. You don't think I wanna find Dad as much as you do?"

"If you do, then why aren't we doing that?" Sam retorts hotly. " _Finding Dad_?"

Dean scoffs. "It's not that simple, Sam. It's gonna take time."

"All I'm hearing are excuses," Sam challenges.

It's Dean's turn to look insulted. " _Excuses_? Look, Sammy. I don't wanna hear you talk about excuses to me. _I'm_ the one that's been with him every single day for the past two years while _you've_ been off to college going to _pep rallies_."

Sam takes the bait and is firing back an angry response. "You know what Dean, I think you're jealous 'cause you've been stuck in this _hellhole_ life while I was—"

At this point, I slam my hands down onto the counter because that's definitely _enough_. The forks jump on our plates loudly in response and Sam and Dean snap out of their little pissing match while I give them each half-angry half-disappointed looks, shaking my head no. _Stop, guys. Just stop._ I sit back, arms crossed, annoyed at everything in the world, but especially these two asshats.

Tight silence floats between them for a second. "Look, forget it," Dean says, his voice forcibly. "We'll _find_ Dad, but until then, we're gonna kill everything bad between here and there. Okay?" Sam looks reluctant about it and I look at Dean meaningfully, prompting him. He needs to say he's sorry about that unnecessary stuff he said to Sam. He knows what my look means but scoffs, too proud to say anything. I kick his shin hard and he jumps. " _Ow_!" He whines, looking at me indignantly. "Fine!" He lets out a charged breath and then looks at Sam with thin lips. " _Sorry_ ," Dean says, but with a lot of attitude. He smirks abruptly, wry. "For telling the truth."

Sam rolls his eyes and I do too, hand coming tiredly to my face. _Ugh._ Behind us, the waitress walks by with a bunch of menus and Dean gets distracted, his eyes drifting down to her ass as she moves past. "All right fine, Lake Manitoc," Sam's agreeing in a strained voice, then sees how Dean's off in booty-land. " _Hey_ _._ "

Dean returns his attention to Sam. "Huh?"

"How _far_?" Sam asks, patience wearing thin.

"Oh, uh… I dunno, thousand miles, give or take. Fifteen hours… _if_ we obey the speed limits. Heh." He's winking at the waitress who is halfway across the restaurant. He gives her a little wave and eyebrow waggle.

Sam's not having it and competes for Dean's attention, leaning out of his seat slightly. "Hey, _focus_. You can have _fun_ when we find Dad."

Dean looks at Sam with a shit-eating grin. "Aw come on Sam, you don't want a little fun before then?" He asks playfully, thoughtlessly. Wrong thing to ask.

Sam looks stung. "…I _loved_ Jess," he says, and his voice is wavering with sadness. "She's barely in the _ground,_ Dean." He shakes his head, face filled with disillusioned pain. "What's _wrong_ with you?"

My oldest brother realizes his insensitivity fully when Sam says that about Jess, you can see it in his eyes… Dean falters, abashed, clearly regretting his careless comments—feeling bad, embarrassed. It all translates into a terse, gruff demeanor and a long awkward silence. "Sorry Sam," he says, dodging Sam's drilling glare and fiddling around with his wallet. "I wasn't thinking. You know me. Never had anything like that," he says, throwing a couple bills down onto the counter to pay for breakfast. He's avoiding looking at either of us. "Not really."

Sam's standing up, withdrawing, and it seems that Dean's _sorry_ is too little too late to entirely smooth things over. "Let's just hit the road, all right?" My twin asks, stony.

"Yeah. Good." Dean brushes past Sam and is silent for a long time afterwards.

* * *

**Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin  
Twenty-Four(ish) Hours Later**

We drove ten hours yesterday before having to stop and rest and just get some physical space from each other. Being stuck in the car like that is enough to make us all stir-crazy, especially when things are just so undeniably tense and threatening to snap completely anyway. We checked into a typical hole-in-the-wall motel where we shared a cheap leathery pizza and some beers then half watched some cheesy gameshows. Dean conked out first, Sam spent some time "emailing friends" and ignoring me. I fell asleep to the drone of _The Price is Right._

It's different with Sam here with us and I know Dean feels it too. In some ways, it's nice. I know Dean is really happy to have someone who can actually have a conversation with him but he's also sort of annoyed that now there's always someone around who is challenging him, arguing with him, second guessing him. Dean and I know each other's habits and routines like our own. Sam threw a wrench into everything. Honestly I doubt Sam will stick around for long at this rate. I'm disappointed and sort of hopeful at the same time. I don't know. I feel thrown out of routine and stressed out and guilty about not being overjoyed to have Sam with us.

It's morning now and we're in the city of Lake Manitoc. We tracked down the address for the Carlton family out of the phone book and are pulling up to the lakeside residence right now. As the Impala teeters along the uneven gravel driveway, the trees clear and show a still, quiet body of water—the lake where that Sophie Carlton girl drowned. It glistens underneath the overcast sky and a jagged firry tree line marches around the water's edge. A solitary dock stretches out nearby from the manmade gravel shoreline. A man sits in a chair at the end of that dock, hunched forward. The area looks peaceful, a few lake houses dotting the dark lake… and yet… I feel unsettled.

Dean parks the car at a pretty cabin-looking house and we shuffle up the steps. I hang back, hands in pockets. A guy a little younger than us comes to the door.

"Will Carlton?" Dean asks, assuming he's Sophie's brother who we read about in the obituary.

"Yeah, that's right," the mousy guy confirms, eyeing us carefully. He looks like he's in his late teens.

"I'm Agent Ford." Dean says, then nods to Sam. "This is Agent Hamill," then to me, "and Agent Fisher." Sam and I exchange a brief glance and I hope that Will Carlton's not a Star Wars buff. Dean is so ridiculous sometimes. "We're with the US Wildlife Service," Dean says and holds up an ID, and just like that, trust is given.

Dean asks if Will can just "fill us in a little" about what happened for a report we have to file. As Sam, Dean, and Will stand a few feet off, I walk along the water's edge where it laps quietly. I crouch down and touch fingers to the cold water, look out across the surface. I've got my EMF meter out and fiddle with it discreetly. It's getting readings, but not much out of the ordinary. Maybe I'd have better luck out further into the lake. I decide it's inconclusive and stick the meter back into my jacket.

I can hear Sam and Dean asking Will questions behind where I'm crouched: _Where was she when it happened?_ About a hundred yards out and she got dragged down. _You're sure she didn't just drown?_ No, no way—she was a varsity swimmer. _Did you see any shadows in the water, a dark shape beneath the surface?_ No, but she was really far out and visibility wasn't good.

I stand up and flick the water off my fingers, glance at the man sitting at the end of the pier again as I slide my hands into my jacket pockets. He hasn't moved a muscle and his face is turned away. I wonder if that's the father of the drowned girl. I wonder how _my_ father would react if I drowned in a lake. Would he take to silence and grief? Or would he load his gun and carry on like it was any other day?

"You ever seen any strange tracks by the shoreline?" Dean is asking and I refocus, contemplate them from my distance of about twenty feet off then stare off at the dad again as I listen.

Will hesitates. "No, never… why? You think something's out there?"

"We'll let you know as soon as we know anything," Dean says, cutting short any speculation. He turns my way, motions for me lazily. "Hey Al! Move it or lose it." He sure has a way with words, huh? I start to head to the car.

"What about your father?" Sam asks suddenly, softly. Dean and I stop. "Can we talk to him?"

Will hesitates. "Look, if you don't mind, I mean… he didn't see anything and he's kind of been through a lot. He wouldn't be able to tell you anything else."

Sam nods, sympathetic and showing it with an attentive expression. "We understand. Very sorry for your loss."

"Yeah," Will said, sadness filling his youthful face. He looks down and rubs the back of his neck blankly. "You know you're parents are probably gonna die but… you never expect for your sibling to. Not so young anyway."

Dean seems to be especially taken aback at those words but he covers it over. "Take care of yourself, Will," he says, dismissing the interaction and giving Sam a _let's scram_ side-eye.

Back to the car and it starts up with that familiar rumble.

"Any EMF out there, Alexander?" Dean asks me.

I hold my hand out flat, jiggle it back and forth, shrug, make a face. _Meh. Not really._

Dean and Sam both nod, digest it thoughtfully. "So, what now?" Sam asks, looking to Dean who's backing the car up already, turning the wheel with one hand as he looks over his shoulder lazily.

Dean's gained his devil-may-care attitude back and cracks a grin Sammy's way. "Go hit up the PD, dig around, see what we can see," he says loftily then cranks up Def Leppard to an almost deafening volume.

* * *

**Not Long After  
** _**Brew Ha Ha** _ **Coffee Shop**

I'm sitting around feeling bored and listless and a little sorry for myself, honestly. While Sam and Dean poke around at the police station, I'm a few doors down in a local small-town coffee shop… they didn't say it outright but I understand the implication: I'd be of _zero_ help. That is what I have always hated the most… the moments where I very clearly feel the way I burden and oblige my family. Sam was the one who suggested I could "hang out and relax" while they "did the cop stuff." I know what he really meant: You can get out of the way so we don't have to be inconvenienced by you. I acted fine with it because you know what? The only thing worse than the pain-in-the-ass that my disability makes me to my family would be me being a bitch about stuff. But it still hurts me when I'm left out by default or by decision.

 _So,_ I'm stuck at this very ridiculously-named small-town coffee shop. You know the type: super hippie and artsy, lots of weird mixed-media art on the walls, eclectic decor and lots of punny signs that say things about coffee.

_No coffee, no workee._

_Coffee is not a matter of life or death. It is much more important than that._

_I don't have a caffeine problem… I have a problem without it!_

_Go ahead and espresso yourself._

I'm sitting by the glass storefront where I can see the sidewalk beyond and the street where traffic is light and errant. Not many people are out, but whenever anyone walks by, I watch from my seat discreetly. After awhile, people start to look alike to you when you live an unrooted life like mine. You start to group people into classes and cliches because you can just _tell_ people for what they are. Mom. Student. Business man. Free spirit. Prep. Tired Dad. Bad news. Trouble. Boring. Vapid. Dropout. Druggie. Paranoid. Ditzy. Overachiever. Depressed. Etcetera etcetera.

I spend so much time watching that I like to think I could make a pretty good profiler, maybe. So, there's that.

They say that when you're missing a sense, your other senses are stronger to make up for the weakness. So what happens when you're missing a basic human function? I dunno. Ask me later when I've figured out what the hell I'm good for.

After no one walks by the window for a long couple minutes, I gaze around the coffee shop instead, tapping fingers against the tiny table I occupy. There's not a lot of people in here. Some sort of tribal-sounding music competes with the movie that's on the screen behind the counter and I watch it a couple minutes, recognizing it. _City of Angels._ Dean and I watched that one time and he teared up at the part where the chick dies and the angel guy finds her. "Don't look at me, it's allergies!" Dean had said when I saw his teary-eyed reaction. Yeah… allergies. He's such a softie. Just won't admit it to anyone but me. He's one of the most tender-hearted people I know. Well… he's one of the _only_ people I know, too. This life, you don't really get close to anyone except who you're stuck with. Anyway, good movie, _City of Angels_. Really romantic. It got me good just like it did Dean. After it was over I remember thinking about how bad I want a love story like that. Not so much with the dying after being hit by a logging truck part, just… having a guy love me so completely. It's a fantasy I don't see ever being realized but a girl can dream.

The tribal music is really starting to get on my nerves and I sigh loudly. One of the only sounds I can make.

I think of Sam again. I find myself wishing for something and I'm not sure what. Is it jacked up to want him to stay and go at the same time? I miss how things used to be, that's for damn sure. I remember the three of us, hanging out and getting along and sharing inside jokes and interests and depending on each other to get through the hell of childhood. Now it's like we're from totally different worlds. Maybe I'm just remembering things better than they were. I don't know.

"Get you anything else?" the shop employee asks, stopping at my table. He's got a rag in hand, is cute, was cleaning the table behind me. I shake my head no, look away, hoping he won't ask anything else. He gives me a friendly smile despite my attitude. "Just gimme a shout if ya change your mind!" He says, on his way again.

A _shout_. Yup. Sure. I'm distracted and dissatisfied now. The music and the movie's sounds are clashing and I feel so damn frustrated I want to scream. I need to do something to get all this agitated energy out. My nerves are shot and I want to climb something or break into somewhere we're not supposed to be or go for a run, maybe. But Dean said to wait here so… I'm waiting. It won't take them long, I hope.

I contemplate the empty table top in front of myself, glancing up every once in awhile. I notice how everyone else here in this coffee shop is with someone. Two girls are chatting animatedly over some frilly coffees, a guy is slouched down in an armchair and plucking on a guitar as he talks about what "the Lord's teaching me through this tough semester" to another hipster looking guy wearing an oversized beanie. A mother and her little curly-haired daughter are having tea. I'm alone, off by myself and I feel it so starkly and suddenly. I stick out like a sore thumb and it's like I think people can just take a single look at me and _know_ I'm not like them. It's nothing new, but I still don't like it… this constant feeling of being the kid in the cafeteria who no one wanted to sit with or acknowledge at all.

A knock on the window right beside my face startles me—it's Sam and he's motioning for me to get a move on, _hustle_. I do, seeing that Dean is walking ahead of him down the sidewalk with some brunette chick. Relieved to be on the move again, I exit the coffee shop and catch up with my twin, having to walk pretty fast to match his insanely long stride. I point at the girl leading the way questioningly—she and Dean are about ten feet ahead. "That's Andrea, and Dean's _embarrassing_ himself," Sam tells me furtively, sounding mildly annoyed. "He cruise for hookups this much when it's just you two or is he trying to prove something?"

I shrug neutrally. The answer to Sam's question is no, not really. Dean flirts like crazy but he's not half the womanizer he imagines himself to be.

We're catching up to them. Where is this chick taking us, anyway? "So, cute kid," Dean is saying to the Andrea girl. She's walking fast in front of him and he's trying to keep up, get her attention. So what, she's got a kid? …Where?

"Thanks," she says, not sounding too eager to talk to him as we cross the street. Immediately I kind of like her a little bit, because if she's not into Dean… that shit is always funny when he strikes out.

Dean tries again to get her to talk to him. "Kids are the best, huh?"

… Seriously? That's all he's got? Sam and I glance at each other at in abrupt shared amusement.

Andrea glances at Dean at that comment and ignores him, but she's smiling like she's wondering if he's seriously trying these lines on her. We stop in front of a building that says _L_ _akefront Motel._ "There it is," she says, turning to speak to Dean. "Like I said, two blocks." Dean looks pleased… she's finally talking to him. And then she smiles at him demurely. "Must be hard, with your sense of direction… never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line…?" Andrea leaves even as our jaws drop, calling back over her shoulder, "Enjoy your stay!"

 _Boom,_ roasted! That was such a good burn. It caught me off guard and I'd be laughing if my vocal chords would let me. Kind of gleeful at how perfect that little comment of hers was, I poke Dean in the ribs repeatedly. Take that, Smooth Moves. "Hey, _hey_!" He protests, batting me away indignantly. "You _know_ I'm ticklish!"

Uh, yeah, I do. Which is exactly why I love to do what I just did.

"' _Kids are the best_ '?" Sam is asking, clearly judging Dean and teasing him at the same time. "You don't even like kids."

"I _love_ kids!" Dean protests indignantly.

Sam challenges him. "Name three children that you even _know_."

Dean thinks, holds up his hand to count off names… and comes up empty. Sam waves a hand at him in dismissal and walks off toward the motel. Dean scratches his head, looking seriously befuddled. "I'm thinking!" He defends, then heads off to follow Sam slowly. "Do you and Al count?"

"Uh, _no,_ " Sam says, sassy as it gets as he opens the motel door, nods at me. "After you," he says, motioning and waiting for me to walk through. That's kinda nice. Dean never does that kind of stuff for me (I think he views me as a boy half the time, honestly). _Sometimes you're not so bad, Sam, what with your manners and your chivalry._ He's currently giving Dean a lecturing look as he holds the door.

Dean stops short before coming into the lobby, thinking of something. "Wait, whoa… I need to drive the car over from the PD," he says, then gets faintly excited. " _And,_ it's _lunchtime_." The guy loves food. Almost to the point of insanity. Commanding, he points at Sam. "You check us in Sammy, me and Al are gonna go grab some grub and get the wheels." He cracks a puckish grin at our brother. "You want the greasiest thing on the menu, right?"

Sam smiles falsely and sarcastically, seeming to think _very funny,_ Dean. My twin looks at me like he's going to tell me something important. "Don't let him get me something gross," he says with over seriousness, like it would be the end of the world if he got greasy french fries to eat. I give two thumbs up to Sammy—rabbit food it is, then—I about face and walk right back out of the lobby three seconds after walking in, falling into familiar step with my oldest brother.

We start retracing our steps back toward the police station where the car will be parked. For a minute we just walk, hands in pockets, strides matching.

Then Dean turns his head and fixes me with a close, scrutinizing look. "You okay? Seem kinda distant or something," he says. I glance at him briefly, shake my head while shrugging like nothing's wrong, even though I want to shrink smaller so he can't see me as well. "It's Sam, right?" Dean presses. "Having him around's weird after him being MIA for so long," he says, squinting in the midday sun as he lopes along. "Me too," he says, admitting that he feels the same. "It'll get better," he tells me. "Especially once we find Dad." … _Dad._ I don't even realize it but I guess I cloud over. Dean points it out as we stop walking, having arrived at the parking space where the Impala's sleek black body rests. "Don't make that face… the man's come a long way. People _can_ change, Al."

I cut a moody glance his way. I'll believe _that_ load of shit when I see it. Dean lazily slings an arm over my shoulders, pulling me roughly and tightly to his side for a little hug, halfway attempting to trip me up—my feet definitely did stutter but I don't loose my footing. I do, however, poke him in the side again, right where he's ticklish. Yelping out a laugh, he lets go, surrenders. " _All right,_ all right," he defends, then indicates that I look across the street with a thrust of his chin. There are two restaurants side by side across the street… one sign says _Hungry Burger_ and the other one says _Dynasty Garden._ Dean contemplates them with pursed lips, glances sidelong at me. "So. Burgers or Chinese?"

I point decisively at _Hungry Burger._ Dean chuckles, puts his arm around me again, looks either way before we cross the street. "That's my girl."

I like it when he says that.

* * *

After he puts in our orders at the little burger joint, we sit in a booth to wait. He lets me know what they dug up at the police department. Three drownings in the last six months, no bodies… "And then there's the dam," he continues. "It's about to go—" he makes explosion noises and a _poof_ kind of motion with both hands. "They give it six months, tops. So…" he shrugs, scratches the back of his head, unsure what to make of it.

Same here. I wrack my brain. Huh, so what… some kind of vengeful water spirit maybe? A water wraith? The friggin' Loch Ness monster? Did the impending dam break stir up some ancient water-spirit grudge…? Was that even a real thing?

"Could be a bunch of things or maybe even something we haven't heard of," Dean says, fiddling with the ring on his right hand impatiently, cutting through my thoughts. He sighs, sits back in the booth, and something about his behavior suddenly clues me into something deeper going on.

I look at him silently— _are you okay?_

He sees how I'm looking at him in concern and he wipes the look off his face and in its place is a slight eye roll. He pulls out his phone, checks it—probably looking to see if Dad's called, which he won't have. I feel sympathetic toward my big brother. I know he really looks up to Dad for whatever damn reason and I know he's sad and feeling rejected and unsure right now. In response to my sympathetic look Dean huffs, jabs his pointer finger at me. "You know I hate it when you look at me with those big sad eyes," he complains gruffly.

I just smile a little. They call our order and it's time to go. Food in tow, we drive the thirty-seconds from the PD to the motel—Sam texted us the room number and we go find it.

The three of us chow down together but no meaningful conversation happens between my siblings. Just Sam getting uncomfortable in the silence then asking Dean if we've seen the new Spiderman movie ("You kidding me? I hate that kid—Tobey whatshisface, always looks like he's about to poop"). Sam gets eye-rolley and makes a smart comment about how he bet we saw that kiddy Harry Potter movie instead. Um… Dean and I glance at each other, say nothing. I mean, I really liked the books, okay?

After lunch, Dean goes through his clothing as I page through Dad's journal on the hunt for anything on water spirits. Sam's hunched over his laptop, silently reading news websites.

"So there's the three drowning victims this year like we figured out before…" he says after a few minutes.

"Any before that?" Dean asks, sniffing his pants and making a face, throwing them into the dirty pile.

"Uh, yeah," Sam confirms. "Six more spread out over the past thirty-five _years_. Those bodies were never recovered either. If there _is_ something out there, it's picking up its pace."

"So, what, we got a lake monster on a binge?" Dean asks, then looks at me as he folds a shirt sloppily. "Dad write anything about lake boogie men in there?" I haven't found anything yet and shake my head, shrug uselessly.

Sam sounds really vexed. "This whole lake monster theory though, it just _bugs_ me," he mutters.

Dean goes over to Sam to read over his shoulder at whatever website is up. "Why?"

"Loch Ness, Lake Champlain—there are literally _hundreds_ of eyewitness accounts, but here, nothing. Whatever it is out there, no one's living to talk about it."

Dean points at the screen suddenly, leans closer over Sam's shoulder. "Wait, Barr, Christopher Barr. Where have I heard that name before?"

"Christopher Barr, the victim in May… lemme open the link." I'm setting the journal down and drifting over to see what they're looking at on the laptop. Sam sits back slightly. "Oh. Christopher Barr was Andrea's husband—that woman we met back at the police station. He was Lucas's father. Hm. Apparently he took Lucas out swimming… Lucas was on a floating wooden platform when Chris drowned… two hours before the kid got rescued." His voice is soft and I can see a picture on the page of a kid with brown hair. He's wrapped in a towel standing beside a police officer. His expression is terrified, totally deer-in-the-headlights. "Maybe we have an eyewitness after all," Sam says. Beside me, Dean looks pained by association as he looks at the picture of the kid.

"No wonder that kid was so freaked out," Dean says quietly. "Watching one of your parents die isn't something you just get over."

I'm confused… who is this boy in the picture? Lucas, I get that his name is Lucas, but when did Sam and Dean meet him or whatever? I'm looking at Dean questioningly and he seems reluctant to explain. "That kid, we met him at the station. That chick Andrea's son. He uh… he hasn't spoken out loud at all since the accident."

Hasn't spoken? I feel taken aback. What like… selective mutism or something? Dean's looking at me and I see how he's feeling bad, sorry for me or about me and comparing Lucas to me. The pain written on his familiar face makes me look away and I feel guilty for putting that look on his face at all. I hear him clear his throat and his tone is businesslike now. "Hey, you remember how Andrea said she was gonna take Lucas to the park?" He asks Sam. "Let's head that way, see if maybe he can tell us more."

"Whoa, Dean—you're gonna try and _question_ that poor kid?" Sam asks, turning around in the chair he sits in, fixing our brother with a pretty flabbergasted look.

Dean's immediately defensive and a little rude towards Sam. "Look, if there's anything I know how to do right, it's talk to a kid who doesn't talk back, okay?" He retorts, then the room goes quiet.

Me. He means me.

Sam relents, slightly embarrassed as he realizes Dean's right. "Fair enough," he says, then stands up, grabs his jacket, looks at me briefly. "We'll be back in awhile."

Dean gives a short little cynical chuckle, corrects Sam immediately. "Uh—no, she's coming, Sammy." He jerks his thumb at the door, telling me to get a move on. "Let's go."

* * *

If I could think of one word to describe life right now it'd have to be _awkward._ Silences used to be companionable with it was just Dean and me. Now they're stilted and charged.

Dean and Sam argued over how to find the park and while they squabbled, I stopped someone walking by and held up a note that asked **can you tell us where the closest park is?**

The woman gave us directions and I gave my brothers a _quit being bitches_ look. We walked to the park from the motel. It wasn't far.

Now that we're here at the park, I can see an array of kids playing, climbing, roughhousing. I see one boy off on his own and immediately know that must be Lucas. He's bent over a park bench coloring. His mom, the Andrea chick, is giving him space I guess. She's about twenty feet away. After Dean and Sam say hello and remember to introduce me all nice and proper to her, Sam hangs back with Andrea after Dean gets the okay to go ahead and talk to Lucas. Dean indicates that I should come with him. "Follow my lead," Dean says as we head that way. I give him a semi-amused look. I always do, don't I?

"How's it going?" Dean asks Lucas as we approach, then crouches down across from the kid. I kneel at the end of the bench, fold my arms over the wooden slats, not sure what Dean wants me to do here, exactly. Lucas doesn't acknowledge us, he just keeps coloring. He has colored construction paper stacked next to him and some untouched plastic army men scattered across the bench, too. Dean and I exchange a glance and I shrug almost imperceptibly. I dunno what to do…! Dean picks up a toy soldier.

"Oh, I used to love these things," Dean says conversationally and swings the little plastic piece around making cheesy gun and explosion sounds. I'm shaking my head and trying not to crack a smile at his antics. I remember the army-men days well. I used to chew on them when we were four and five and it really pissed Sammy off. Lucas keeps coloring, ignoring us, and Dean tries again. "So crayons more your thing?" Dean asks, watching Lucas carefully. "That's cool. Chicks dig artists."

I pick up the drawing on top of the little pile of drawings Lucas has next to himself. It's of a big black swirl—kind of horror movie fodder, if you ask me. Dean is quiet for a second, I glance up and see him looking at me with that pained look in his eyes again. He looks away fast, takes the stack of drawings and flips through. "Hey, these are pretty good," he says, looking at one of a red bicycle. Watching him with Lucas is heartwarming and bittersweet to me. He's good with kids. He always has been. Sam and me were the first kids he was good with. "You mind if I sit and draw with you for awhile?" Dean asks Lucas.

No response, but Dean doesn't even bat an eye. "I'm not so bad myself," he says, going ahead and picking up the stack of paper and a crayon, standing up. I have my hands together and under my chin as I watch silently, mostly observing Lucas, but looking at Dean from time to time. He's taken a seat at the other end of the bench and is drawing with crayon as he glances sidelong at Lucas again.

"You know Lucas, I'm thinking you can hear me, you just don't want to talk. I don't know exactly what happened to your dad, but I know it was something real bad." Lucas is still unresponsive. "I think I know how you feel. When I was your age, I… I saw something." He pauses, stops drawing for a second, growing deeply thoughtful and pensive. I wonder what he's thinking about. The night of the nursery fire? He doesn't talk about it much, but I know he remembers it.

Sobering a good deal, Dean takes a deep breath, glances my way darkly. "Anyway," Dean looks at Lucas, gathering himself. "My sister Alex here? She doesn't talk 'cause of what happened." I'm shocked at the abrupt throwaway comment. "Just like you. She saw something so bad that it just… made her voice go poof, I guess."

We both know PTSD or trauma didn't make me decide to be quiet. I literally _cannot_ make sounds with my vocal chords. Dad used to say the doctors just didn't know what to do with me, then told me he thought it had to be a paranormal curse or something. We still don't know. If I'd been born this way maybe I would feel more peace about it. But Dean remembers that I made noises and even said "dada" before the night of the nursery fire. The one thing I hold out hope for is that if we _do_ ever find the thing that killed Mom, we can get my voice back too.

Anyway, all that aside… Lucas stops drawing for a second and glances my way before returning to his scribbles.

"Listen," Dean says to the kid. "We understand and we wanna help." He returns to drawing. "Maybe you don't think anyone will listen to you, or, or believe you. I want you to know that I will. You don't even have to say anything." I peek up at him from underneath my eyelashes. He's used to these one-sided conversations after a lifetime with me and he's good at them, too.

"You could draw me a picture about what you saw that day, with your dad, on the lake," Dean suggests, refocusing on Lucas. When he again gets no response, he nods and backs off. "Okay, no problem. This is for you." Dean holds out the stick-figure drawing he made. "This is my family." He points to each stick figure individually. "That's my dad. That's my mom. That's my geek brother—" he smirks, glances Sam's way, "my kid sister—and that's me." A pause, and Lucas still says nothing, just colors his little rocket ship drawing, off in his own little world. Dean gives up but keeps his voice friendly and calm. "All right, so I'm a sucky artist." He stands, puts the drawing down where he'd been sitting. "I'll see you around, Lucas."

Dean starts to walk off but I don't move. When he stops and looks at me questioningly I shake my head slightly, motion for him to go on and go. He hangs back, but watches, curious.

Lucas comes out of his fog, picks up the drawing Dean left, stares at it curiously, then looks at me and then back to the picture, then back at me again. He's scrutinizing me kind of suspiciously. I smile just a little, reach over and tap the stick figure on the sheet that symbolizes me—Dean wrote my name underneath it. _Alex_. I tap myself now, telling him _that's me._ Lucas looks at me a long time, trying to decide something maybe. I grab a blank piece of paper, a crayon, write something down that he should know. When you're a freak, people don't _see_ you. Yes, they _look_ at you, but they don't _see_ you for who you really are, they don't see you as a person who is more or less just like them. I hate being looked at and I crave being seen. Not many people see me.

And I think maybe Lucas feels like not many people see him. Maybe I'm just projecting. But maybe not. I hold out what I've written for him to read. **I see you.**

Lucas reads that and tilts his head to the side just slightly, thoughtfully, then reaches out and accepts the paper from me. I feel a flicker of encouragement. Wow. Usually I'm a total disaster with kids—I just never know what to do with them and they don't know what to do with me either—kids like loud people, entertaining people and that's just not me. I think I'm easy to miss if you're not looking for me. But Lucas seems interested in me, open to me and thoughtful. He's not passing me over like some people do. He takes out his own blank piece of paper and writes on it then hands it back over to me. In kiddy handwriting he has written **I see you too** **.**

I smile a little and tilt my head, look at Lucas's little face. He's maybe eight I think and has longish floppy brown hair, eyes that seem older than his body, sadness hidden deep inside. He's looking at me thoroughly and I feel like I kinda get this kid somehow. Understand him without needing words or anything. I don't encounter that feeling a lot out in the world. His eyes crimp up just a little as the faintest smile plays on his face.

And just like it happened, it's abruptly over. Lucas goes back to drawing something again and ignoring everything and one else. After a few beats, I get up and drift back over toward where my brothers are talking with Lucas's mom.

"Lucas hasn't said a word, not even to me," Andrea's saying to Sam. "Not since his dad's accident."

"What are the doctors saying?" Sam asks in attentive concern.

"That it's a kind of post-traumatic stress. Selective mutism, something like that."

Sam nods, sympathetic, glancing at me flickeringly before looking back at Andrea. "That can't be easy. For either of you."

Andrea looks like she's been through emotional hell. Still, a brave smile is on her face. "It's not, but… we moved in with my dad. He helps out a lot. It's just… when I think about what Lucas went through, what he saw…"

There's a pause. Dean's the one who speaks up to fill it. "Kids are strong," he says firmly. "You'd be surprised what they can deal with."

He's speaking from personal experience.

"You know, he used to have such _life_ ," Andrea says sadly, looking over at her son with bittersweet emotion. "He was hard to keep up with, to tell you the truth. Now he just sits there. Drawing those pictures, playing with those army men. I just wish I knew he'd be okay again someday."

"He will be," Dean replies immediately. "Just make sure he always knows he's got you and he'll be fine."

Andrea looks at him with a curious, thoughtful expression. "You sound like you're talking from experience, Dean."

He shrugs, hiding his deeper emotions and thoughts. "Hey, maybe I am."

Just then Lucas walks up with a piece of construction paper in hand. "Hey sweetie," Andrea greets. Lucas isn't looking at her—instead, he's offering Dean the piece of paper.

"Thanks," Dean says in mild surprise even as Lucas is drifting away again, going back to his bench. "Thanks, Lucas."

I crane my neck to peer over. It's a picture of a house with a red roof. _Huh._ I watch Lucas walk off and settle down at his bench again. It's strange. He's surrounded by playing, shouting, laughing kids who are swinging, running, playing. And he's just quiet, pale, both unnoticed completely and sticking out like a sore thumb. I feel sad just to see that. Kids aren't supposed to be so ghostlike. It's not right.

I should know, I grew up feeling like a ghost. In fact, I still feel that way.

* * *

**The Next Day**

I'm frowning out the car window watching the landscape blur by as I ponder what's happened overnight. It just doesn't make sense. Doesn't add up. Rubs me the wrong way. What are we missing here?

That's exactly the topic of discussion up front in the car.

"Lucas _knew_ something bad was gonna happen in the house," Dean's saying, voice strong with passionate conviction. "He _knew._ " He hits the steering wheel lightly for emphasis.

Sam isn't convinced and shrugs, mutters pensively. "I don't know about that."

"What, you got a better explanation?" Dean asks churlishly.

"I dunno, maybe he just _happened_ to give you the drawing of the house Will Carlton died in?" Sam suggests then gives Dean a sidelong look from where he's sitting in the passenger seat. "Coincidences _do_ happen, Dean."

"Well then that's one hell of a coincidence, Sam," Dean retorts flatly, shaking his head.

I'm with Dean on this one. Yesterday when Lucas handed us that drawing of a house, it didn't seem _that_ odd. I mean, kids draw houses a lot, right? But then when we got news that Sophie's brother Will died this morning (he drowned in his own house, in a _sink_ somehow), we realized the house Lucas drew was the house Will drowned in. Almost like Lucas knew.

We just left Lucas's home and Dean convinced Andrea to let him talk to the kid more, ask if he knew anything else. We got another drawing but no words.

"I mean, think about it," Dean's continuing. "Andrea said the kid never drew like that till his dad died. That's something, you gotta admit."

Sam concedes the point. He's got Lucas's newest drawing in his lap. "Well, there _are_ cases where going through a traumatic experience could make people more sensitive to premonitions, psychic tendencies…"

"Yeah, see?" Dean sounds convinced. "Whatever's out there, what if Lucas is tapping into it somehow? I mean, it's definitely only a matter of time before somebody else drowns, so if you got a better lead, _please_."

Sam sighs softly, tiredly. "All right, we got another house to find."

He's talking about the one in the latest drawing we got. "The only problem is there's about a thousand yellow two-stories in this county alone," Dean says starkly.

Sam taps the drawing even as I'm leaning up between the seats to peer at it again over his shoulder. The white church drawn in crayon has a house is beside it and the house has a wooden fence. Against the fence is a boy with a red bike. "See this church?" Sam asks. It's very distinct, sort of mission style. "I bet there's less than a thousand of those around here."

Dean adopts a silly accent. "Oh, College Boy think he so _smart_!" Sam and I hide smiles at the comment and the way our brother said it.

A short silence passes and Sam looks at Dean with a slightly concerned look on his face. "So, you know, um… what you said to Lucas back there about Mom…" he trails off even as Dean's guard goes up a couple notches. "How you saw something bad happen to her? You never told me that before," Sam says cautiously.

"It's no big deal," Dean says, but it sounds like he's hedging. Sam seems to think the same thing I do and is giving our brother a look that prompts him to get sarcastic. "Oh god, we're not gonna have to hug or anything, are we?" Dean asks, implying it'd be the worst thing on earth.

I'm writing on my notepad and since Dean is driving, I nudge Sam and hand over the note I just scrawled. Sam takes it from me even as the exchange garners a curious glance from Dean. "What'd she write?" He asks as Sam's reading it.

My twin glances up. "She wants to know what you saw."

Dean's mouth flattens a little in a tense expression and he shrugs, tries to brush it off. "I dunno. I mean, I only got a glimpse, you know?" He stares straight ahead and for a minute the only sound is the muffled engine and the odd creaking of the car joints. Then he speaks again, voice faraway. "There was fire. I remember there was fire." He drags a hand down across his mouth then makes a _get outta here_ motion with his hand. "It's all a blur. Doesn't matter."

Sam and I exchange a brief glance and I can see my twin doesn't really buy that. Me either. Dean's never said much of anything about that fateful night of our lives. Doesn't look like he'll start now, either. Either way, Sam doesn't push Dean for more information. He just changes the subject and we spend the next hour riding around town looking for the church.

* * *

Follow the bodies. Follow the deaths… they always mark a trail back to the killer. That's proving true once again for us. I only wish we didn't have we could find the killer without letting the body count pile up so much higher and higher.

We found the church and the house beside it. Sam and Dean went inside and spoke with the resident there, an elderly woman they said. They asked about the red bike they saw in Lucas's drawing and if a little boy lived there. Apparently, a little boy _had_ lived there… decades ago. The red bike in Lucas's drawing belonged to this woman's son Peter who disappeared when he was just a boy back in the seventies. Dean said in the house there was a photo of Peter with, of all people, Bill Carlton… the father of the recent drowning victims. So, a boy who disappeared years ago and deaths surrounding the Carlton family. It's beginning to make sense and it's beginning to look like Peter was probably killed by Bill. That's why we left that house double-time and raced back to the Carlton lake house, trying to get to Bill. But we got there just in time to see him going out onto the lake on a boat… and then out of nowhere, the boat flipped over like something hit it from underneath. Bill was dragged underneath the black water and stayed under. It looks like Peter got his final revenge. It looks like we couldn't do anything or save anyone. This happens from time to time and always upsets me a lot. I know it eats at Sam and Dean too.

The police officer who responded to the scene, Sheriff Devins, was apparently the same one who Sam and Dean spoke with yesterday. He took one look at them and me, listened to their witness report, and then said we had to come to the station for questioning. He seems pretty suspicious. I don't really even know why Dean's cooperating on this one (the job's over… why not just cut and run?). But, here we are walking into the police department.

So imagine my surprise when I look behind the reception desk and see Lucas sitting there as his mom fusses over him. It's now that I make the connection that Andrea is the Sheriff's daughter… he calls her sweetheart and thanks her for bringing him dinner, they exchange some words I don't really pay attention to. I'm looking at the kid. Lucas is fidgeting and has this look of general illness and distress. Without warning he jumps out of his chair and grabs hold of Dean's arm, begins to cry and make soft, unintelligible noises of dismay.

"Lucas, hey, what is it?" Dean asks, worried and surprised at the sudden and urgent grabs at his arm.

"Lucas!" Andrea exclaims softly, catching hold of her son and trying to calm him and get him off of Dean at the same time.

"Hey, Lucas, it's okay," Dean says, "It's okay," even as the kid is whimpering miserably with this look of pure urgent alarm in his eyes.

His mom pulls him away from Dean and looks really worried. "I'm gonna take him outside a minute," Andrea says, and bustles him out of the station and out onto the front steps. I'm watching in uncertainty, not sure what just happened.

"You boys wanna come into my office?" The Sheriff asks in a dour tone. Dean shoots me a look that I think means hang tight. They follow the Sheriff back further into the building and I drift toward the glass station doors to watch Lucas and Andrea on the steps out there. Poor Andrea… newly single mom after her husband drowned and now Lucas is shutting down. It can't be easy. After hesitating, I go out there.

Andrea has sat Lucas down on the steps and is in front of him, holding him by either arm as she crouches and tries to calm him, tries to get him to look her in the eye. "Sweetie? Hey, come on now. You're okay. Can you talk to mama? Can you tell me what's wrong?" He is just moaning in these pitiful little whimpers and not making eye contact with her. It's like he's haunted or tormented by something internally.

I've never heard of PTSD like this—is that what it even is? I'm starting to doubt it. Andrea sees me as I come down a few stairs nearer to them. She looks up at me and seems desperate and at a loss. She shakes her head, stands up. "He won't say anything. _Nothing._ " She looks at her child with this clear pain and confusion. "How am I supposed to know how to help him if he won't say?" I dunno if she's asking me or the universe. Either way, I can't give her an answer. But, I guess she wanted me to say _something_ because when I don't answer, she looks at me sort of in this challenging flabbergasted way. She thinks I'm being rude when I say nothing. She hasn't figured it out—that I'm mute—and I have to do the same old song and dance of pointing at my vocal chords in chagrin and making _nope, no, nada_ signals with my face, hands, expression. Embarrassed understanding washes over her expression, then mild confusion like that couldn't possibly be true. "Oh—you're—you can't speak?" She asks, thunderstruck.

I shake my head no and she gets the apologetic look in her eyes. "Oh—I'm so sorry. I didn't know—no one said anything—no one told me."

It's okay. I get that a lot.

I'm looking at Lucas now, who surprisingly and suddenly looks at me in breathless, hyperventilating terror. I don't get it… something is _wrong_ with him—really wrong to make him act like this. I feel my expression turning to a deep, confused frown. _What is it, Lucas? What has you acting like this?_

He suddenly reaches up and grabs my hand real tight with both of his and squeezes until I think my bones are going to break. He's scared, scared mindless, breathing hard and looking at me with eyes that scream _help me_.

Andrea's getting more and more worried. "Okay, that's it," she says, shaking her head in clear alarm. "I'm taking him the the doctor… this can't be normal. Lucas, honey, come on, it's okay, let's go see about getting you checked out again sweetie." She pulls him away from me and I watch her hurry him away. He looks back at me with that agonized look on his young face and I just don't get it.

A couple minutes later my brothers come out and look distinctly shaken up. Sam's throwing a backward glance over his shoulder at the sheriff who's staring balefully at us from inside of the station.

Dean, ever the troll, smiles and waves pleasantly. I can already tell something's up. Sam, chagrinned at Dean's antics, steers us down the stairs. "Yeah, come on. We gotta go," he says, seeming in a hurry.

_What? What'd I miss?_

Dean shrugs mildly. "He knows we're not who we say we are. We stick around in town, he's gonna hold us in connection with Bill's disappearance. So we gotta scram. But…" he looks unsure.

"But nothing, Dean," Sam says. "We're outta here."

* * *

It's just after sunset and we _were_ headed out of town… but then Dean suddenly did a one-eighty and headed right back for Andrea's house.

Sam of course flips out the second that happened. "Dean, why are we going back?!"

"Shut up, Sam, I'm trying to think," Dean replied.

"Think about what?" Sam demands. "Getting us all _arrested?_ "

Dean's in deep thought, not really hearing Sam. "I mean it's _bugging_ me, guys. It's just not right, something's not _right_ here, am I crazy?" He glances back at me as we come to a stop light. "Al?" I don't know what my face is doing but apparently he can see that I'm having the same thoughts. "See?" He asks, jabbing a hand out at Sam. "She's right there with me on this one, Sam."

Confused and half amused with skepticism, Sam scoffs, glances at me briefly before staring at Dean. "What, you got that from a one-second _look_?"

" _Yeah_ ," Dean says like it's crazy Sam would suggest otherwise. "Get with the program Sammy."

Sam's mildly annoyed. "Uh… _okay_ ," he says, not sure how to respond. He then sighs. "Look, I'm saying if Bill murdered Peter Sweeney and Peter's spirit got its revenge, case closed. The spirit should be at rest! We're wasting our time going back—the trail for Dad—"

"Forget Dad for two seconds!" Dean says loudly. "What if we take off and this thing isn't done? You know, what if we've missed something? What if more people get hurt?" He shakes his head grimly. "Not on my watch."

"But why would you even think that?" Sam asks, exasperated. "The spirit has gotta be at rest now after killing Bill. Dean—we're _done_."

"I don't think we are," Dean replies impatiently.

"Why? You a psychic now?" Sam asks sarcastically.

Dean looks reluctant to admit his reason. "'Cause Lucas was really scared."

Sam makes a face, like he really doesn't see a connection. " _And_? Kids get scared, Dean."

"Yeah, they do," Dean retorts in slight animosity. "And usually for good _reasons_." He huffs out a charged breath through his nose, shakes his head and stares at the road ahead after sending me a glance in the rearview. "I just don't wanna leave this town until I know the kid's okay." He glances at Sam and gets irritated. "Don't roll your eyes at me!" Sam opens his mouth to say something sassy, I'm sure, but Dean beats him to the punch. "Start calling me overprotective again and I swear, Sammy."

Cool and annoyed, Sam gives Dean a long look. "Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em, Dean."

"Yeah you do, don't you," Dean mutters. His jaw is tight and clenches as he glances into the side rear view mirror. He's thinking long and hard about something. "The way I was with you and Al growing up was necessary," he says, then cuts a challenging glance Sam's way. "Don't tell me it wasn't."

Sam's shaking his head and not looking back at our brother. "Wouldn't dream of it, Dean."

In the back seat, I'm wishing I could tell them to quit being bitches.

Honestly, I'm glad we're going back. Something just isn't sitting right with me.

* * *

Sam was _veryyyy_ clearly unhappy about it but resigned himself to going with Dean's instincts. For the rest of the ride to Andrea's house, he was quiet and sullen…

When we get to the house and as we walk up to the door, Sam is acting skeptical and unsure again, unwilling to go along with this. "You sure about this?" He asks Dean. "It's pretty late, man."

Dean doesn't care and rings the doorbell. I can hear little running feet in the house getting louder as they get closer to where we wait. And then the door yanks open and Lucas is terrified, wide-eyed, breathing heavy and noisy. Whoa… something's _wrong._ He's panicked, pointing in alarm and then taking off back through the pitch-black house in a tizzy. "Lucas? Lucas!" Dean charges after him, Sam and I are right behind.

We race after the kid up the stairs, I hear splashing and realize water is running down the upstairs hall and down the stairs. Suddenly, I have a terrible thought. I know Will Carlton drowned in a sink. Could Andrea be dead in this house in her bathtub or sink? Even as I think that, Lucas skids to a stop at a closed door, hyperventilating and pounding on the door. His mom is in there, and I can hear splashing.

Dean yanks Lucas's little body away from the door and shoves him at me before I can even react. "Hold him!" Dean barks and I clamp my arms around the flailing kid even as Sam kicks the bathroom door down with a cracking sound.

Lucas is having a full-on panic attack and struggling against me, gasping huge noisy breaths in and out, trying to get to his mom so hardcore that I almost can't hold him back at all—Sam and Dean are shouting and yelling as they struggle to pull Andrea out of a full bathtub of black water. For a second, I have this terrifying thought that they will be pulled down too, they'll drown too. And then with a huge splash and the heavy sound of bodies hitting the floor, they yank her out and all crash to the ground.

Relief courses through me and I feel Lucas's body relax momentarily, too. "Get her a towel," Dean's saying even as Sam's tossing one over to cover Andrea. She is shaken up and crying, gasping, wracked with fear and disbelief. She holds the towel to herself weakly, makes a wretched sobbing sound.

Lucas tears away from me then and barrels into his mom, who tearfully clutches him to herself. "Lucas! Oh sweetie, it's okay, I'm here sweetie, I'm here!" Mother and son cling to each other on the floor of the bathroom as Sam and Dean stand across from me.

Sam, contrite and chastened because Dean was right, meets Dean's gaze then mine. "Looks like we still got work left to do," he says softly.

Instead of being rude or throwing it in Sam's face, Dean just claps Sam on the shoulder and squeezes reassuringly, nods silently.

* * *

_We spent the night with the very shaken up Andrea and Lucas. In the morning, Sam stayed with and counseled Andrea, who was just beside herself, unable to believe she_ _'_ _d almost been drowned in her own tub. Dean and I went through her old photo albums trying to find some kind of connection or clue as to why Peter would be targeting Andrea's family now too._

_I suggested at one point to Dean maybe Peter is just killing everyone living lakeside—Andrea's house is on the lake after all. He said maybe, but we kept looking through the albums just in case. And then Dean discovered an old photo of Andrea_ _'_ _s dad, Jake_ _Devins (the hostile sheriff who tried to run us out of town), with Peter. This led us to the assumption that Jake was probably also involved in Peter_ _'_ _s death. There was no way to really prove it except that now Jake's family was on the water-ghost hit list._

_Lucas led_ _us to a spot near the lake and pointed to shovels beside the garden house, silently telling us to dig. After Andrea and Lucas went back inside, we did, expecting and hoping to find bones. Instead, we found Peter's rusted old red_ _bicycle._ _That's when Sheriff Jake appeared and held us at gunpoint, demanded to know what we were doing. Dean called his bluff and the sheriff admitted that he and Bill Carlton buried the bike after they accidentally drowned Peter as boys. They let his body sink in the lake. There were no bones to salt and burn, and even as we were trying to figure out a damn way to set the spirit to rest, Andrea was screaming for Lucas, and Lucas was at the end of the dock, leaning over the water. And then he got pulled in. We all ran._

_I remember Andrea freaking out—screaming, crying, about to jump in the water—Dean and Sam dove right in but I grabbed onto Andrea, dug claws in practically to keep her from jumping into the water and getting herself killed, too._

_I don't know when the sheriff waded in, I just remember hearing him yelling to Peter to take him instead of his grandson. His head disappeared from the top of the water. Sam's head bobbed up and he shook his head no—he couldn't find Lucas. And I was suddenly panicking even more, realizing Dean hadn't surfaced in awhile either. Even as I feared the worst, his dark head burst up out of the black water. He held an unresponsive Lucas held against himself._

* * *

**The Next Day  
November 17, 2005**

I haul open the trunk and stick my duffel bag in there, have to shift some stuff around to make it fit. Mid morning light slants across the parking lot. I squint over at my tall brothers who are at the side of the car. "Man, sometimes I hate this job Sammy," Dean's saying, morose. He's tossing one of his bags into the backseat. "All the dead bodies, all the jacked up lives…"

"Look, we're not gonna save everybody," Sam counsels gently.

Dean nods gravely. "I know."

I've lost count of the people I've seen die in this line of work. It doesn't break even with the amount of people we've saved. But you know, anyone we save is a small victory to me. Still, when people die and you could have _maybe_ saved them somehow, it eats at you. It cuts in on your sleep and dreams and stress levels.

"Hey guys!" comes a call from nearby. We all look up to see Andrea walking up with Lucas. Sam and Dean go to greet her as I hang back at the trunk. She's smiling, looks young and relieved, brighter-eyed. Even though her dad's dead, she still has her son. I guess that's why she can look so okay after what happened yesterday. Lucas looks worlds better—alert, present. His eyes are clearer. I smile just a little to see that. "We're glad we caught you," Andrea says, then nods down at her son. "We just, um, we made you lunch for the road." Lucas has a tray of sandwiches covered in plastic wrap. "Lucas insisted on making the sandwiches himself."

Lucas looks up at his mom for guidance. "Can I give it to them now?" He asks softly. _Oh my god,_ my heart melts to hear him talk. I think it melts Sam and Dean too… they look at each other with these smiles that are worth a million bucks.

"Of course, baby." Andrea smiles and kisses Lucas's head.

Dean chuckles and accepts the sandwiches, motions for Lucas to come with him. "Come on, Lucas, let's load these into the car." The two of them come closer to me and Lucas smiles and gives me a little timid wave. I wave back even as Dean is looking at his little friend with a playful expression. "So what's this, you talking again?"

Lucas tries to hide a shy smile. "A little."

"You must be feeling better, huh?" Dean asks.

"Yeah," Lucas says. "A lot."

"Awesome, dude," Dean says, then examines the tray of sandwiches with great interest. "So, what we got here? Ham and _cheese_?" He flashes an approving grin Lucas's way. " _Score_ , am I right, Al?"

I give two thumbs up from where I am as Dean puts the sandwiches into the car. Lucas grins at me then looks at my shirt with a curious expression. "What's on your shirt?" He asks me, wandering over closer. I look down. It has the Led Zeppelin logo on it. Another one of Dean's old shirts (from when he was like twelve) that I've claimed as my own.

Dean steps in to explain. "That, my friend, is the world's greatest band," he says. "Zeppelin rules!"

"Zeppelin rules?" Lucas asks curiously.

Dean is animated. "Hell—uh, _heck_ yeah!" He glances Andrea's way, clearly thinking _oops._ She's talking to Sam and didn't notice.

Lucas grins widely, sly. "Don't worry," he says, lowering his voice secretively and leaning a little closer to Dean. "I won't tell Mom you said a bad word."

"Thanks bud," Dean says. "You're the best."

Lucas looks at me and comes over, suddenly grabs my hand, looks me in the eye from his lower height. "I hope you can get your voice back too like I did Miss Alex," he says in utmost earnestness. What he said touches and shocks me and I don't know how to react. I feel really mortified which I know he didn't mean but… I've hoped I would get a voice for all my life and hoping never did anything except let me down again and again. I nod thank you but I can feel my features working in an effort to shield my inner feelings from showing. I'm not like Lucas. I'm stuck this way forever. There is no "getting it back" someday. But Lucas, childlike because he's a child, is optimistic and believes in a magic I can't believe in anymore.

Dean can tell I'm upset and he puts an arm around Lucas's shoulders to draw his attention over. "That's real nice of you, Lucas," he tells the kid. "She really appreciates you saying that."

"How do you know that?" Lucas asks curiously, looking up at Dean studiously.

"I know her pretty good," Dean says, his tone factual and brotherly. "I can just tell. She likes you. Thinks you're cool. Wants you to know that her feet smell like rotten eggs."

I make a face. Lucas busts into a toothy grin and he laughs—a beautiful sweet sound. "She didn't tell you _that_!" He says. I'm smiling too now despite myself.

Dean's grinning. "Yeah, I may have made that last part up." He shoots me a sly look and I nod wanly, accepting that he will always be very immature (and funny). He makes a mock serious face at Lucas. "All right, listen if you're gonna be talking now, this is a very important phrase, so I want you to repeat it one more time. What about Zeppelin…?"

"Zeppelin rules!" Lucas exclaims, remembering.

"That's right," Dean says then puts his hand up for a high five. "Up high." Lucas gives the high five with an enthusiastic slap, grinning. "You take care of your mom, okay?"

"All right," Lucas says, then gives instructions of his own: "You take care of Sam and Alex."

Dean grins from surprise and amusement. He then nods with a _can do_ attitude. "Trust me, I got that covered kiddo."

Andrea and Sam walk up. "Thank you again," Andrea says, smiling fetchingly at Dean. "Stop by and say hello if you're in town again, all right?" I can see she's changed her mind about Dean.

Dean nods, smiles back. He likes her… like really, really likes her. I can tell. "Will do."

And then without warning, she leans in and kisses him on the mouth. "Ewww," Lucas mumbles. Dean and Andrea look at each other afterwards and Sam and I exchange a brief awkward look.

Andrea glances at Dean meaningfully before beckoning to her son. "Come on Lucas," she says, and puts a hand on Lucas's shoulder. "Let's get back home, okay?"

"'Kay, Mom."

They're walking away and Dean and Sam are waving and calling goodbye.

I'm standing off at the trunk, separate from my brothers and I _can't_ call goodbye. I look down into the trunk and feel myself getting upset despite my best efforts not to. I've told myself to get over it but I can't. I'm going to be like this _forever_. It's always going to be silent Alex and the noisy world. It's always gonna be me off in a corner not able to express myself or say what's on my mind. I'll die alone, an old maid. Who would want me? No, really. Who would want me? I _want_ someone to want me. I want that so much. I just wanna have someone look at me like Andrea just looked at Dean. Once, just once would be enough I think. But I don't think I'll ever have that and I want to throw something out of hopeless anger. The problem is _hope_. Always thinking _maybe_ there's a way out sets me up for devastating disappointment. I just wish it didn't have to be this way.

I hear footsteps shuffling up. "Did you get the—" Dean stops halfway through his question, seeing my face. "Hey, _hey_. What is it? Aw, Al, no, come on." He is giving me that _don't be sad_ look but I can't help it. "Was it what Lucas said?" He asks. I get more upset because _yes_. Dean sighs. He hates it when I get frustrated about my condition because he can't do a damn thing. _No one_ can. "I know," he soothes, and pulls me in for a hug. "C'mere." Pat pat, goes his hand on my back and I'm _embarrassed_. I can feel Sam watching and I don't want him to see me cry. It's been years and we're not that close anymore and I just don't want him to see it.

"Shh," Dean's saying. "Hey. It's been a rough week or two, huh? You know what?" He pulls back, makes me look at him and I'm dashing tears away jerkily, mad at myself for crying. " _We_ are gonna go get _cupcakes_. Like, the real deal, not just gas station crap." I look at him sullenly, refusing to be cheered up. Cupcakes won't make it better. At my dour expression, Dean gives me a lecturing look. "Hey, if you keep that up I'll have to tickle you. Don't think I won't."

My mouth twitches slightly at the way he said that. His expression is coaxing the reluctant beginnings of a smile from me.

Sam comes over at that point, hands in his jacket pockets, expression a little reserved. "So hey," he says, addressing me and then jerking a thumb at the front of the car. "You, uh, you want shotgun?" I feel a little surprised and touched, too. He's trying to cheer me up, too, and quickly tries to act like he's not. "I'm kinda sick of sitting by him," he says impishly, glancing at Dean.

"What?" Dean scoffs. "Why?"

Sam shrugs, casting around for a quick, funny reply. "You smell."

Dean's eyebrows raise high. "I smell… _good_ ," he corrects, then cracks a huge shit-eating grin as he does his chuckling _heh heh heh._

Sam rolls his eyes even as he fights a _that was kinda funny_ smile. Dean's rounding the car and heading for the driver's side. I slam the trunk shut and Sam gives me a little smile as he pulls the back door open to get in. My heart warms a little at the gesture of giving me the front seat and I almost go in for a hug but then don't at the last minute. Just brush past him and pretend I wasn't thinking about it.

I can hear _Blue Oyster Cult_ cranking up as Dean starts the car. The song is "Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll"… one of Dean's favorites. I get in the front seat beside him and shut the door. I can feel my oldest brother looking at me sidelong, gauging me. I pretend I don't notice and in a second, the car shifts into motion.

I watch the small town pass by idly and listen to the gritty guitar tones grooving on the stereo. We'll leave this place in the rearview like we do every town.

I'll feel bad for myself a little while then suck it up like I always do.

Who knows where the open road will take us next.

At least I know who I'll be with to face whatever's ahead: Dean, the classic rock junkie. And Sam, who is currently in the back seat asking if we can listen to something else other than this album again _please god._

In response, the music just gets cranked louder. I hide a smile so Sam won't accuse me of being on Dean's side.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last chapter I wrote of TFB! The story is on an indefinite hold - for now :)


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